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Gannett to Split Publishing and Broadcast Businesses into Two Companies

Following Tribune's move as of Monday........the print side is dying...and the tree is being trimmed.....to see which branch will survive....
 
Exactly. The print couldn't be sold, so this is the only method to free the broadcast assets.

Print, with smart management, can produce decent cashflow if the debt doesn't eat it all up, but revenues will decline. It's really more of a long term managed liquidation. Done properly, the shareholders of the new companies can make money, in dividends, not share price growth, while the weaker papers are shed and the stronger ones milked for the maximum cash they can generate.

Should not be managed by people who love newspapers though. Such persons would be unable to make the tough decisions.
 
Gannett will be sending all the debt to the TV side with this transaction. The newspapers will be effectively debt-free.

The same can be said for the Scripps/Journal transaction.
 
Gannett will be sending all the debt to the TV side with this transaction. The newspapers will be effectively debt-free.

The same can be said for the Scripps/Journal transaction.

Familiar pattern. When Belo split the broadcast and newspaper business in 2008, all the debt was dumped on the broadcast side. Gannett had to eat all of that as part of their later acquisition of Belo.
 
With all this going on, it brings up the FCC's broadcasting-newspaper cross-ownership rule. Looking at it objectively, it's a total failure. The NAB is stirring the pot with these comments:

"Cross-ownership rules that prevent common ownership of a radio station and TV station or broadcast entities and newspapers in the same market do not promote the Commission's localism, competition or diversity goals. The newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rule, in particular, should have been eliminated years ago. Failure to do so has likely led to the hastened diminishment of the newspaper industry and should serve as a warning to the Commission of what can happen to the marketplace when it ignores its deregulatory mandate and waits too long to adjust its rules."
 
Forgot about this: Now with Gannett shedding its newspapers (including the Battle Creek Enquirer), it can finally buy WOTV Battle Creek from LIN/Media General and make it a satellite of WZZM for the southern part of the market. Of course, it might have separate newscasts.
 
With all this going on, it brings up the FCC's broadcasting-newspaper cross-ownership rule. Looking at it objectively, it's a total failure. The NAB is stirring the pot with these comments:

"Cross-ownership rules that prevent common ownership of a radio station and TV station or broadcast entities and newspapers in the same market do not promote the Commission's localism, competition or diversity goals. The newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rule, in particular, should have been eliminated years ago. Failure to do so has likely led to the hastened diminishment of the newspaper industry and should serve as a warning to the Commission of what can happen to the marketplace when it ignores its deregulatory mandate and waits too long to adjust its rules."

NAB has also come out in favor of relaxing radio ownership caps per market...WTF??? What are they smoking? That has been shown to be a disaster!!! Localism is gone with corporate radio....lucky to find anyone at the station after the morning show except maybe the receptionist...
 
NAB has also come out in favor of relaxing radio ownership caps per market...WTF??? What are they smoking? That has been shown to be a disaster!!! Localism is gone with corporate radio....lucky to find anyone at the station after the morning show except maybe the receptionist...

That's not because of cross-ownership with newspapers. If you check out ANY of the radio stations that are still co-owned with newspapers, they are models of localism, with more local news than any other station in the market. Same with radio companies that are co-owned with TV. Look at Cox or CBS. Loads of local programming.
 
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