Politico Founder Allbritton To Invest In New York Coverage

So what do you do when you sell your family’s television stations, including Arkansas ABC affiliate KATV, for nearly $1 billion?

If you’re CEO Robert Allbritton, you make another substantial investment in your online empire spearheaded by Washington, D.C.-based Politico.

On Monday, Allbritton announced he has purchased Capital New York, an online news publication based in New York City, with plans to make a substantial financial investment “to sharpen and grow the organization.”  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The beefed up New York coverage will likely replicate the success Allbritton chartered at Politico, and he says he plans to invest heavily in journalists “to cover New York’s most powerful leaders in media, culture, business and city and state politics.”

The business model will be similar to Politico’s with an ad and subscription base.

“I have very big ambitions for Capital: to do in New York what we did in Washington with Politico,” Allbritton said. “I believe powerfully that nonpartisan publications with an intense focus on a specific set of topics can break though quickly, editorially and financially. I’m excited to take the impressive work Benson and McGeveran did with Capital to the next level.”

Capital was founded in 2010 by Josh Benson and Tom McGeveran, who left editor roles at The New York Observer to launch a publication aimed at a highly knowledgeable New York audience. They have run the company since its inception and will continue to run Capital day to day as co-editors.

The publication will hire more than two dozen people in the coming weeks and relaunch this fall.