This story has been updated
Developer Bart Blatstein said Friday that his investor group will consider creating its own newspaper and website if it's not allowed to join the bidding for Philadelphia Media Network, parent company of the Daily News, Inquirer, Philly.com and SportsWeek.
"With the new realities of media, I feel it's a very viable option," said Blatstein, whose investment group, Philly Hometown Media LLC, has been shut out of the bidding.
"I have received countless emails and calls from others wanting to be involved with this," he said. "There's been a lot of encouragement to do this, not just from investors but from [journalism] industry insiders."
PMN spokesman Mark Block said Friday that the company had no comment on Blatstein's announcement.
KYW newsradio has reported that Evercore Partners Inc., the investment banking company managing the sale of PMN, closed a first round of bidding last week and might not reopen the process.
"Evercore never made clear the process for negotiating for the purchase of PMN," Blatstein said.
On Tuesday, the Daily News blog PhillyClout reported that Blatstein's investor group, which includes soda mogul Harold Honickman and Bill Harvey, a partner at the law firm Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg, wanted to bid for PMN.
The blog post was replaced that day with a PMN statement that it was not negotiating with Blatstein.
On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that local philanthropist Raymond Perelman had sent a letter to PMN's board complaining that he was not being allowed to bid for the media company.
Perelman, who had wanted to bid along with his billionaire son, Ronald, told the Daily News that "this whole thing is very weird."
The only publicly known group actively bidding for PMN is a team of local investors led by former Gov. Ed Rendell.
Blatstein said Philly Hometown Media LLC believes it could have a news website running within five months, with a subscription-based daily print product following three months later.
Blatstein acknowledged that he has spoken to Perelman, but it's unclear if the philanthropist would consider joining Philly Hometown Media LLC.
Blatstein's investor group issued a news release on Friday that read in part: "It may well be that Philadelphia has been a one company newspaper town for too long. Our preliminary modeling indicates that this [new] venture would be successful."
