GateHouse Media buys Dix Communications newspaper chain

The Dix Communications newspaper chain, with operations in northeastern and east-central Ohio, has been sold to GateHouse Media for $21.2 million.

The Dix family announced the sale to Pittsford, New York-based GateHouse on Tuesday.

Dix Communications operations include a printing facility in Wooster and more than 30 daily and weekly newspapers, online-only publications and specialty publications. Its larger newspapers are the Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier, The Daily Record in Wooster, the Ashland Times-Gazette, The Review in Alliance and The Daily Jeffersonian in Cambridge.

GateHouse Media owns The Columbus Dispatch, The Canton Repository and about 50 other Ohio publications and websites. It operates in more than 520 markets in 35 states and owns more than 125 daily newspapers and more than 300 weekly newspapers, along with other publications and websites.