Media General, Inc. Sells The Tampa Tribune

Media General, Inc. , a Richmond-based broadcast television and digital media company, announced today that it has sold The Tampa Tribune and its associated print and digital products to Tampa Media Group, Inc., a new company formed by Revolution Capital Group.  The sale closed today.  The sale price was $9.5 million, subject to adjustments for working capital and other items, yielding net proceeds before expenses of approximately $2 million.

“It’s a bittersweet day for Media General to complete the sale of its last remaining newspaper group,” said Marshall N. Morton, president and chief executive officer.  “The Tampa Tribune was our largest and second oldest newspaper.  Many Tribune employees have decades of service.  The Tribune staff has been extraordinarily dedicated to providing their readers with excellent journalism, creating value for their advertisers and supporting the local community.”

Morton said, “With this transaction, we complete the transformation of Media General’s business model to one focused on broadcast television and digital media.”

“We have an attractive economic model, fueled by revenue growth, including Political, Retransmission and Digital revenues. For example, Political advertisers prefer top-ranked stations like ours.  In the third quarter of 2012, Media General generated Political revenues of nearly $20 million, which brings our year-to-date total to more than $33 million.  Media General has stations in four of the key battleground states for the presidential election:  Ohio, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.  Our Virginia, Rhode Island and Ohio stations are also benefiting from hotly contested Senate races.  We have increased our outlook for Political revenues for the full year 2012 to $57-58 million,” said Mr. Morton.

 “Plans are underway to increase Broadcast cash flow and EBITDA margins. At the market level, we are focused on ratings and share increases as well as expense management.  As we’ve said previously, corporate expense will decrease from $32 million to $20 million, a run rate we are already close to achieving.  Since June, our corporate staffing has been reduced in half, including employees who went to work for World Media Enterprises, the Berkshire Hathaway company that bought our newspapers in June, and a staffing reduction we implemented in the third quarter that affected 75 employees.”

According to a Media General news release, The Tampa Tribune has been Tampa’s hometown newspaper for more a century. TBO.com, the newspaper’s associated web site, was one of the first local media internet sites when it launched in 1994. Media General purchased The Tampa Tribune in 1927 in a partnership.  In 1966, Media General acquired control of The Tribune Company, which included The Tampa Tribune, The Tampa Times, WFLA-TV and WFLA Radio. In 1969, Media General acquired an additional 29% of The Tribune Co. and by the next year owned 100%. In 1975, the two newspapers moved into a new facility on Parker Street, where the newspaper operations reside today.  The Tampa Times, an evening newspaper, merged into The Tampa Tribune in 1982.

Media General continues to own WFLA-TV.