The Political Whore

Just getting caught up from last week’s expected public spanking of the current Media General brain trust. (Deggans had a good piece on it if you want to get caught up on the details. Hinman at the BizJournal, too.) For those who don’t follow arcane public media company goings-on, even those involving the owner of our favorite whipping-boy local daily, the Tampa Tribune, three dissident board members beat out the insiders for seats on the Media General board.

Those nominations had led to a nasty proxy fight that MG lost. And what a sore loser the company’s management was. MG CEO Marshall Morton sent the faithful the following e-mail:

Subject: Marshall Morton Comments on Media General Annual Meeting

April 24, 2008

Dear Fellow Employees,

Media General held its Annual Meeting of Stockholders this morning. Based on preliminary election results, it appears that the three individuals nominated by the Harbinger hedge fund were elected to the company’s Board of Directors. Our press release has been posted to the Meganet.

We are disappointed that three very capable directors, who have contributed significantly to the Board’s deliberations, both through their ability and their experience, have been displaced.

I want you to understand that Harbinger cannot, under any circumstances, forcibly gain control of Media General, and that the three new directors cannot gain control of our nine-member Board.

We will listen with courtesy to the ideas of the new directors, but, frankly, I believe they are going to have to prove themselves worthy of their places on our Board before they will be able to earn the confidence of the remaining directors.

I appreciate the many notes of support I received during the proxy contest. Throughout, you stayed focused and continued to make a difference to our audiences, our advertisers and the communities we serve.

You deserve tremendous praise for the successes we have been achieving. Through your efforts, we are transforming the company into a new media enterprise. We know that our customers are in charge, and we are leading change to meet their needs. Employees across our company have created opportunities for us to:

• Foster a critical culture of innovation
• Adopt a successful Web-First strategy in all of our newsrooms to increase total audience and market share
• Create targeted new products to reach new audiences and attract new advertisers
• Expand our interactive advertising services to generate new revenue and cash flow streams
• Complete the transformation to digital broadcasting, launch high-definition local newscasts and use the expanded digital spectrum to offer secondary channels in many markets
• Deliver our content to mobile consumers via cell phones and other portable devices

We will succeed because we have the right strategic focus, the right tools and you are the right employees. Thanks to the relationships we’ve built with consumers and the skills we’ve developed to address their needs, when people want information about their communities, they turn to the Media General brands in their markets. Consumers value our information and we intend to continue to be the leading provider of news, information and entertainment in all our markets.

Your continued support of our mission, our values, and our strategy for success is the right way to build shareholder value for all of us.

Thank you.
Yours sincerely,

Marshall N. Morton
President and Chief Executive Officer

So, at MG, how do new board members “prove themselves worthy?” Vote to overpay for four piddling NBC affiliates in a down economic cycle? Uphold MG’s insistence on broadening the FCC’s media monopoly rules so it can do “convergence” in more markets? Lost tons of money year to year?

Seems that’s the way that the old board members made their bones.

Oh, and the buzz from 202 S. Parker Street (”the News Center”) is that it will be June before the company sorts out its buyout offer situation and plows through the stacks of those who offered to take the bullet now and those who are holding out to be Leo Di Caprio, clinging to the railing as the ship goes down.  (”Never let go.”) Said one person with knowledge of the situation: “It’s like a mauseoleum.”

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