Posted by Wayne Garcia on Aug. 11, 2009, at 2:00 pm
Back when it started, TBO.com was a pioneering website, easy to navigate with lots of good info fed into it from a robust Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV newsroom.
Today, 15 years after its birth, TBO.com is the growth engine on Parker Street for Media General, but it is a shadow of itself content-wise. It also uses video poorly (given all its access to video from owning the top-rated local TV station) and has an absolutely incomprehensible and unnavigable blog structure.
August 11, 2009 – Today, TBO.com celebrates 15 years of serving the Tampa Bay community online. August 11, 1994 marked the first date of online publishing for TBO.com, making The Tampa Tribune one of the first newspapers in the nation with a dedicated news Web site.
… Today, TBO.com serves more than 3 million unique visitors each month with well over 20 million page views every month. TBO.com recently introduced new interactive elements to its site including VIPIR Interactive Radar from Storm Team 8 allowing users to zoom down to street level and view storms just above their neighborhoods. TBOsnap.com launched as the new user video submission tool, allowing Tampa Bay residents to record news and report it straight from their video cell phones via e-mail to myshots@tbosnap.com. Also as a leader in mobile Web technology, m.tbo.com recently released news and weather videos on the iphone platform and is receiving record views from TBO mobile iphone users.
“The biggest change in 15 years has been the growth of digital news – first on the Web, and now on mobile and social networks. We’re proud of the team that’s dedicated to the success of this 24 hour news service and that continues to work every day to make us Tampa’s No.1 source for breaking news,” says TBO.com’s Content Director, Loren Omoto.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 22, 2009, at 10:05 am
From Media General, which owns TBO.com, the Tampa Tribune and News Channel 8 in this market:
RICHMOND, Va., July 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Media General, Inc. (NYSE: MEG – News) today reported net income for the second quarter of 2009 of $20.6 million, or 90 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $532.2 million in the 2008 period, which included a non-cash, after-tax impairment charge of $532.1 million. The current quarter included a $7.1 million after-tax gain on the sale of a CW television station in Jacksonville, Fla., a $3.6 million tax benefit that resulted from a favorable determination concerning a state tax issue, and $7.5 million of tax benefits attributable to the company’s first-half results from continuing operations. Excluding severance expense from both quarters, and last year’s impairment charge, income from continuing operations before taxes was $3.8 million in 2009’s second quarter compared with $2.6 million in the year-ago quarter.
“A 23-percent decrease in total operating costs year-over-year was a major contributor to the company’s improved operating results, helping to offset a 20 percent revenue decline. Actions driving the lower expenses included reductions in force across the company, a furlough program, a suspension of matching in the company’s 401(k) plan in 2009, and the final freeze of the company’s pension plan effective May 31, 2009. Service accruals ceased in the partial freeze of the plan in 2006 and now future salary increases do not affect retirement benefits. Media General has implemented many difficult but necessary expense reductions that strengthen our ability to weather the deep recession and recognize the reduced revenue streams available in our business. As a result, we are in a stronger position to take advantage of an economic recovery,” said Marshall N. Morton, president and chief executive officer.
“Our aggressive cost elimination actions were particularly evident in our Publishing segment, which generated a $12 million profit in the current quarter compared with $6.8 million in the prior-year. Publishing revenues declined 20.3 percent in the second quarter, about the same as the first quarter. We saw the rate of Classified advertising declines abate somewhat in the second quarter compared to the first quarter of 2009, mostly in the automotive category, and particularly in our Florida, Virginia and Alabama markets. The decline in Retail advertising in the current period was also less severe than in the first quarter of 2009.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jul. 15, 2009, at 8:53 pm
Gays and straights alike carried red flags (a comment on a Media General exec who said the station viewed Speechless: Silencing Christians and “it didn’t raise any red flags”) and signs relabeling the NBC affiliate in Tampa Bay as News Channel H8 on Wednesday afternoon. More than 100 protesters gathered along Kennedy Boulevard in front of the station’s News Center to draw attention to the hate program that was aired for what they believe was $35,000 paid by a Christian group.
In a sign of political courage, Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder attended the rally and said of News Channel 8’s decision,”This is not who Tampa is. This type of hate is just not acceptable in our community.” Dingfelder is running for a County Commission seat, a demographic that is much more to the right than the city of Tampa where he has served two terms.
Watch CL video coverage of the rally after the jump.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 31, 2009, at 11:25 am
Holy sagging revenues, Batman, it’s a fire sale over at The News Center on Parker Street in downtown Tampa as the Media General-owned properties shed newscasts, employees, sections and real estate. The Tampa Tribune is shutting its bureaus and killing the BayLife magazine on Sunday; the TV station is cutting a newscast.
Details:
First, News Channel 8 is killing its midday newscast. Anchored by Gayle Guyardo and Bill Ratliff, the 11 a.m. newscast just wasn’t attracting advertisers, station officials said in a TBO.com report.
[News Director Don] North says the cutbacks at WFLA are the result of the continuing decline of advertising that is affecting television stations throughout the country.
“Advertisers just aren’t buying the 11 a.m. newscast,” he says. There has not been a decision made on what will replace the newscast, he added.
“Midday” anchors Bill Ratliff and Gayle Guyardo will continue on the “News Channel 8″ morning newscasts and contribute to online coverage.
More shocking is the loss of the Tampa Tribune,’s Sunday BayLife section, home to Twitter-champ Jeff Houck’s food writing. Not surprising from the standpoint of a dearth of ads in the section, but stunning from a readability angle. It is the only section of the now-miserable Sunday Trib that was worth reading, for Houck and for the gardening info alone, stuff you don’t see a whole lot of in other local publications.
The story gives no indication what will happen to that content, so I’m checking to see what I can hear.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 31, 2009, at 6:20 am
More budget cuts at Media General’s converged Tampa operations, as the company axed 65 positions, 12 of which were vacant. Doing the math, that means 53 news industry professionals hit the bricks.
The highest profile was sports co-anchor Dave Reynolds, one of a handful of journalists of color at the TV station. From The Feed:
Reynolds, 45, had been covering sports with one other anchor, Dan Lucas; he said WFLA never really named another lead sports anchor after former top dog J.P. Peterson left more than a year ago. The change also means WFLA has just three people of color among an on-air staff of 26 reporters and anchors.
Now, Reynolds says WFLA plans to use more staffers from the Tampa Tribune to help report sports stories on air. The station also has cut back the Sunday Sports Extra show, he says.
“It’s obviously tremendously disappointing,” adds Reynolds, who has a wife and 4-year-old son. “After a certain while, you think you might be safe…This year was arguably the biggest year ever for sports in the Tampa Bay area, with the World Series and Super Bowl and so many other stories. for us to do what we did with two people…we worked very hard.”
Employees of Media General Inc., the Richmond, Va., parent of The Tampa Tribune, News Channel 8, TBO.com and Centro, will take a mandatory 10 days off without pay during the remainder of the year, President and Chief Executive Marshall N. Morton said in an e-mail to workers this afternoon.
“So far in 2009, economic and corporate earnings reports have been worse than expected,” Morton said in announcing the furlough plan.
“Despite aggressive sales initiatives and significant cost reductions, I regret to report that we need to build in additional expense savings to offset the revenue shortfalls our divisions anticipate.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jan. 19, 2009, at 11:58 am
This just in: The owner of the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and Newschannel 8 is suspending its contribution to the employee 401(k) program starting April 1.
From: MG Employee Communications
Sent: Mon 1/19/2009
Subject: Letter from Marshall Morton
Dear Fellow Employees,
Media General faces an extremely tough business climate in 2009. On the positive side, we got an early start addressing the softening economy and have significantly reduced expenses. We are ahead of many of our peers in implementing sound strategies to address the changes underway in our business. However, the deep global recession is making it difficult to forecast business performance for 2009. We anticipate continued revenue declines in nearly all advertising categories. It is prudent in times of uncertainty to manage our business and cash flow conservatively.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 2, 2008, at 4:24 pm
As Michael Hinman at The Business Journal so eloquently points out, the Tampa Tribune is just coming off an utterly destructive round of layoffs that claimed marquee columnist Dan Ruth and editorial page editor Rosemary Goudreau and yet … its parent company is partnering to launch a new luxury magazine called Blu:
[Financial difficulties at the Trib haven't] stopped Tribune parent Media General Inc. from moving forward with new projects, including a luxury focused magazine the publisher created with a Tampa media group and expects to launch during Super Bowl XLIII.
Called Blu, the new magazine is a joint partnership between Media General (NYSE: MEG) and South Tampa Magazine publisher Fourthdoor Creative Group. The two organizations formed Rain Publishing Group in July and a sales team hit the streets to sell ad space costing between $1,800 and more than $13,100.
At the same time, Blu bought a sponsorship said to cost nearly $60,000 from the Super Bowl Host Committee, the group bringing the National Football League’s biggest game to Tampa in February. The sponsorship includes a kickoff event for the magazine during festivities leading up to the Super Bowl, said John Schueler, president of Media General’s Florida Communications Group and the representative for the Richmond, Va., publishing giant with Rain Publishing.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 17, 2008, at 12:05 pm
I was out of the office last week but was in town and heard all about the latest round of layoffs at Media General in Tampa (including some high profile folks at the Tampa Tribune). I had a few vodkas with Phil Morgan, a three-decades features reporter, after he got the axe last week, And in the past day, a few of the ex-Tribsters even won a mention in a New York Times article on the failing media biz:
Last week, Media General, a company that owns newspapers, television stations and Web sites in the Southeast, eliminated 80 positions in Florida, including a prominent columnist and the editorial page editor at The Tampa Tribune. “The Book of Ruth,” a long-running wiseacre feature by the longtime columnist Dan Ruth, will be missed, now and then. He and the editorial page editor, Rosemary Goudreau, follow a political columnist, Joe Brown, the movie critic Bob Ross and the classical music critic Kurt Loft to the exit.
Readers, especially the ones cranky and serious enough to still be buying newspapers, have not missed the trend.
“Fire your best employees and watch your business go out of business, just like Circuit City is finding out right now. Who wants to read old news when one can find quality articles outside of the TampaTribe. Bye Bye TampaTrib, you have fired one too many of your excellent personnel and now I am firing you!” said a reader, Bob, in a comment posted to The Feed blog at TampaBay.com, a media blog by Eric Deggans, a media and television reporter at The St. Petersburg Times.
The verdict at StopBigMedia.com is that greed and profit-motive is blame, in an article titled “Bloodletting in the Newsroom”:
Greed and Profit
The Internet has transformed the media industry and how the public consumes news. More people are reading their local newspapers online than ever before. Online ad revenue grew for 17 straight quarters until its recent decline. Nevertheless, the NAA expects online ad revenue to continue its growth next year.
Despite the changing industry, newspapers remain extremely profitable. The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) reported that the average pre-tax profit margin for newspapers was 18.5 percent in 2007. Some newspaper profits remained above 20 percent. “The industry remains profitable, but it has come time to take the ‘obscenely’ out of that commonplace observation,” PEJ said in its annual State of the News Media report.
But the majority of newspapers are publicly traded companies for which any decline in profits is unacceptable. As a result, newspapers are trying to please Wall Street by axing jobs and scaling back coverage.
With fewer reporters on the beat — and less quality local coverage — it’s no wonder people aren’t subscribing to the paper. While these cuts may please stock analysts, they harm the public. There are fewer journalists covering the business of government at city halls and state capitals across the country. Media companies are closing their Washington and foreign bureaus, while the number of lobbyists pushing the legislation agendas of their corporate clients at the local, state and national levels has increased under the diminishing watchdog eye of the Fourth Estate.
I take no glee in any of the layoffs. With Creative Loafing working to reorganize its finances in Chapter 11 bankruptcy court, the view from here is nothing but sadness about this industry and our clear failure now to provide the information that people will need to make good decisions in a democracy. You can blame Wall Street, but there is plenty of blame to bring home to this industry, which spent almost nothing on R&D for technology and new products until it was too late, did little training of its employees to give them digital skills and continues to wander mindlessly from technofad to technofad in search of eyeballs.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 12, 2008, at 6:37 pm
Media General’s top Florida honcho didn’t return CL’s calls for comments after our blog post yesterday, but the Tribune did publish an acknowledgement of the layoffs and buyouts there this week in this morning’s news:
An estimated 250 to 260 jobs are being eliminated as part of a reduction in force by the Florida Communications Group, which oversees The Tampa Tribune, WFLA, Channel 8, and other local media properties, group President John Schueler said Wednesday.
Of the cuts, about 200 have already taken place or are pending the completion of the company’s voluntary buyout program, Schueler said.
…
On Wednesday, Schueler said about 120 positions were cut earlier this year or last year through attrition or involuntary layoffs. An additional 21 positions were eliminated Tuesday in advertising operations.
(My sources had put the advertising layoffs this week at a higher number, so I stand corrected on that figure.)
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 11, 2008, at 4:56 pm
Part of the other shoe has dropped over on Parker Street; sources tell me that 75 employees in the Tampa Tribune’s advertising department were let go earlier this week. (UPDATE: the official word from Media General was that it was 21, according to a story published by the Trib on Thursday after this blog post was written.) No editorial cuts were announced, but today, the head of Media General’s combined operations in Tampa (the Trib, Newschannel 8, tbo.com and other properties) wrote to the staff that more layoffs are coming in the next few weeks. Here is a copy that was supplied to me by a source who requested anonymity. (I left a message to speak with Schueler about the cuts and will let you know when/if I get to interview him.):
From: FCG_Communication
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Subject: A message from John Schueler
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be wrapping up the voluntary buyout program we offered. Out of the 650 eligible for the buyout, as of today 54 will be leaving us. There may be a few more as individuals make their personal decisions. We appreciate all of their many contributions and wish them well. They will be missed.
As we stated before, if the voluntary buyout program does not produce the necessary reduction to align our expenses with our current revenue expectation, we will need to follow up with an involuntary program. These plans are being announced within departments and to individual employees as they are finalized. Some are happening now and others will occur over the next few weeks.
We realize how difficult and uncomfortable this is for everyone. We have an obligation to review our processes, products and services and then align our resources with revenue. As a result, we have to make tough decisions and develop priorities. We must continue doing the things that are most important to us and to the communities we serve. By taking this approach, we expect to retain our market position, support our journalistic mission and be capable of leveraging a rebounding economy.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 6, 2008, at 4:24 pm
They’re not the only Big Media company looking at this, but the Tampa Tribune is in the midst of outsourcing some advertising layout jobs to India, reports The Business Journal:
“We’re recreating jobs [in the production department], and everybody in the department already knows what’s happening,” said Denise Palmer, president and publisher of the Tribune. “This is not news for any of our employees, but we haven’t yet settled on a final number.”
Most of the cuts come as a result of the outsourcing that will take place in the Tribune’s downtown office, Palmer said, but some cuts also could take place at the paper’s Sebring office where its Highlands Today is published. The move to outsourcing should be completed by September.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 22, 2008, at 3:12 pm
Michael Hinman over at The Business Journalreports that Tampa Tribune parent Media General is cutting 750 jobs companywide and expects 60 of those losses to come in the Tampa newsroom.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 13, 2008, at 10:47 am
These are not happy days for journalism in Tampa Bay, and I take no joy in the fact that both of the mainstream daily newspapers are cutting back staff and/or space to save a few bucks as the business model that made print journalism possible for years crumbles out from underneath us.
First, the St. Petersburg Times. Over the weekend, the largest daily in Florida informed the readers of the outcome of its secret Flagship committee, which studied how to change the paper to meet a 21st Century audience and declining advertising revenues. Neither Eric Deggans nor Neil Brown used the word Flagship, but nonetheless, here’s what that committee came up with for May 19:
Stop publishing Floridian except on Sundays. Floridians writers — among the best at the paper, including John Barry, Lane DeGregory and Ben Montgomery — will now compete with metro and national reporters for space in the A and B sections.
Stop publishing a daily Business news section, putting biz news into the B section.
Eliminate stock listings.
The metro, B-section gets renamed “Tampa Bay.”
Eliminate other features, including the Sunday Working section.
Put comics and other reader favorites into the classified section and rename it all “BayLink”
In a Starbucks world, it is the venerable Dunkin’ Donuts that sells more hot cups of coffee than anybody in America.
Even as the Starbucks “experience” transformed the coffee-drinking marketplace, the 58-year-old Dunkin’ chain found a way to soar, having grown its revenues roughly 50 percent in a recent three-year period. How? Rather than hunker down it adapted to changing tastes: more high-quality coffee, fewer fattening doughnuts.
This seems an apt lesson for newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times, as we consider how best to deliver distinctive journalism and useful advertising in a time of profound technological change and extraordinary economic turbulence.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 29, 2008, at 11:18 am
Was just talking with a local media maven about the woes at Tampa Trib-parent Media General and the coming buyouts/possible layoffs, and he commented, “They should just put a bullet in it and be finished with it.” Reminded me of this scene:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 29, 2008, at 11:12 am
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.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 16, 2008, at 1:11 pm
In the proxy fight that Media General (owner of the Tampa Tribune and Newschannel 8) finds itself in with activist hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, two more pieces of bad news for the Richmond, Va.-based company.
First came news yesterday that a second proxy advisory service, ISS Governance Services, is recommending MG shareholders vote for 2 of Harbinger’s 3 outside directors in balloting at the company’s annual meeting on April 24. Harbinger owns a reported 18.2 percent of MG’s Class A stock. (The company is closely held, however, by the Bryan family through Class B stock, so no matter what happens in the election don’t expect changes any time soon.)
Harbinger is the second-largest outside shareholder. The largest outside shareholder in MG, investor Mario Gabelli with a 22 percent stake, today threw his support behind Harbinger. In a letter to MG, Gabelli wrote:
“In light of the ownership position of Harbinger, the need to launch a zero based budgeting approach to your decision-making process, and the clear lack of explanation as to the thought process behind the ill-fated and ill-timed NBC acquisition, particularly since our firm’s observation that the company should not make any acquisitions and reduce debt to maintain financial flexibility, was ignored. These factors tilt our decision to vote at the annual meeting for the Harbinger slate. This decision will be reviewed on an ongoing basis for future elections.”
He’s referring to MG’s $600 million purchase of four NBC affiliates in markets that some Wall Street observers have said make little sense.
So what does this mean for Tampa Bay? Clearly, the Tribune will continue to be published (in some form) if MG has its way, since the company called its Tampa properties the “Crown Jewel” of its mediocre empire in a recent SEC filing. But expect further, as George Costanza would say, “shrinkage.” Already, the movie critic is history and the Monday business tab is gone. Other sections have been shrunken or eliminated. More with less, that is the US news mantra these days.
But it could be even worse than that, with pressure from dissident shareholders and a deepening recession pointing to drastic cuts and even, at Harbinger’s veiled suggestion, the dumping of the newspaper. It would seem to make no sense, though, since we wonder, who would buy a lone newspaper these days? No Wall Street company would touch it with a 10-foot pole; perhaps citizen activists could come up with some local ownership group? Or let’s face it, the best potential buyer right here in our own backyard: the St. Petersburg Times. It could then put its Tampa Bay Times trademark to full use immediately and consolidate its reach and audience in the Bay area.
The other problem with a sale, from the standpoint of continuing to operate the Trib, is how would you untangle the newspaper from its converged status with Newschannel 8, which clearly would not be for sale and is profitable? The two share a common assignment desk and office space. Conventional wisdom has always been that a Times purchase of the Trib would be for the name only and would result in the end of the Tampa Tribune as a real operating newspaper.
(Ahhh, MG should have taken that Bert Sugarman deal for $1.7 billion back in the 1980s.)
Not at all good times recently for the Tampa daily, with the positive-PR-challenged Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson able to pull the wool over its editorial board’s eyes and have an op-ed piece run by one of his (apparently legion?!?) public relations consultants, according to (say it with me) the Times:
[T]he author, Mike Foerster, didn’t mention that he is not merely a retired longtime government official. He’s a consultant being paid $75 an hour by Johnson’s office for communications and public relations services under contracts that began almost a year and a half ago.
In addition, before Foerster’s column was published in the Tampa Tribune, the newspaper asked Johnson if Foerster still worked for him. Johnson denied it, according to a top editor.
Rosemary Goudreau, the Tribune’s editorial page editor, said Friday that the newspaper decided to run Foerster’s column, in which he described himself as “director of communications for Hillsborough County for 19 years,” after determining Foerster had no relationship with the elections office.
The article criticized Trib coverage of Johnson and urged the newspaper to let up on him. This after the Trib muffed a story about another Johnson PR flack, one that led to an e-mail blast from the office:
Note to Voters of Hillsborough County
In this morning’s editorial piece, the Tampa Tribune inaccurately reported that Chief Deputy of Communications, Jennifer Marks is an employee of a public relations firm. In fact, Marks oversees communications and voter outreach and education efforts for the Supervisor of Elections Office. In a busy election year with a whole new voting system, voter education efforts are paramount and required by law. (Florida Statute 98.255(2)). All press releases put out by the Elections Office are for the purpose of informing Hillsborough County residents of important election dates and other pertinent election matters, as well as keeping the public apprized of ongoing voter outreach and education efforts.
Leaving aside the pissing match with Buddy for a second, we turn our attention to the more interesting hostile maneuvers undertaken by second-largest Media General shareholders Harbinger Capital Partners. It released on April 1 (no fool’s joke to this) its plan for “Rebuilding Value at Media General,”which focuses on expanding the board to include more outside directors to its liking:
The stock has declined 59% since we first invested ten months ago. We’re here today, nearly a year after we first became a shareholder, because we believe the time is appropriate to enhance the composition of the board in order to rebuild value for all shareholders.
We believe Media General has been falling behind its peers for years, has a consistent but consistently flawed strategy, and has made some major mistakes.
Ouch. But the truth hurts; the Bryan family’s personal fiefdom is not one of the great journalism or business stories in the U.S. Here’s what amounts to a response from Media General CEO Marshall Morton, delivered to uber-investor Mario Gabelli (another frustrated shareholder):
What we are is a content company – and, more specifically – a local content company. But it’s really more than that: we are audience aggregators. The way we make money is by connecting advertisers to local audiences. We have research-based relationships with consumers in each of our individual markets. Consumers value our information, including those advertising messages by the way.
When people want information about their communities – whether that’s news, weather, general information, entertainment information or, particularly this year, political information – we want them to think of and turn to the Media General brands in their markets. If we’re doing our jobs right, we are “local†in each of our communities.
One market we’ll talk a lot about today is Tampa. Tampa (including St. Petersburg and the 10 counties around those cities) is the 13th largest DMA in the country, and it’s the largest market in Florida. It has a population of more than 4.2 million people and nearly 1.8 million households. And, every week, we reach nearly 80% of that Tampa market with our information. No competitor or peer even comes close to that.
We do this by using many different platforms to distribute high-quality local content (when I say “high quality,†that’s personal short-hand for “timely, objective and usefulâ€). Our platforms include The Tampa Tribune; WFLA-TV (the #1 news station in the market); our Internet portal, TBO.com; and other daily and weekly newspapers in the same market. It also includes a Spanish-language newspaper and webcast, local television shows, niche newspaper and magazine products, and information packages sent to cell phones and podcasts.
The point here is that, as technology has evolved, audiences have become more and more platform-demanding, and we have had to become increasingly platform indifferent—we give it to the consumer the way they want it: some may want to read a newspaper over breakfast, but they also want continuing access to what we offer during the rest of the day, whether they’re walking, driving, sitting at their desks at work or traveling. We can give them that, and do so with branded, trusted, differentiated and value-added information compiled by editors, reporters and other information professionals who understand, importantly, that every platform is different and may require a different presentation to work well and be relevant for the consumer at that particular place and time.
Now, everyone who’s followed us knows that we’ve gotten hammered over this past year in the Tampa market because of the real-estate induced recession that continues to deepen across Florida – and a number of other key growth markets across the country. If anyone wishes, I’m happy to talk about what we’re doing specifically in Tampa to address these conditions. But the point I want to make is that Tampa has historically been a terrific market for us, and it will be again – in part because we’ll make it so.
In the meantime, though, we’ve applied the lessons we’ve learned in Tampa in all of our other, mostly southeastern, markets. So, the “audience aggregator†point carries across all markets, the need for a multiplicity of tools carries across all markets, and the value of trusted, high-quality local news and information carries across all markets.
Harbinger, however, has another, more “final” solution in mind for Media General’s underperforming in the market, especially when it comes to the company’s newspapers:
Improve Publishing Division
Cut costs more aggressively
Implement higher standards given its underperformance
Reduce spending and apply more scrutiny to cost/benefit and payback analysis
Be opportunistic but disciplined with future acquisitions and divestitures
Most urgently, consider alternatives for Florida market properties [emphasis added]
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 24, 2008, at 11:13 am
Media General, the owner of Newschannel 8 and the Tampa Tribune, is blaming its lackluster financial performance on us right here in Florida. Specifically, Reuters reports, it’s our shitty economy that is getting the finger(pointing):
Poor economic conditions in Tampa, Florida, will contribute to Media General Inc. reporting a loss when it announces its first-quarter results, the newspaper publisher and broadcaster said on Thursday.
Media General, which publishes the Tampa Tribune, said “the recession in Tampa is so deep that we will not be able to fully offset the revenue shortfalls we are experiencing there.”
The company plans to post a loss of 40 cents to 45 cents a share from continuing operations. The figure does not include five television stations it is trying to sell.
Ahhh, nothing like a nice, deep recession.
Things aren’t as gloomy, however, for the president and CEO of Media General, Marshall N. Morton, according to the AP:
The chief executive officer of struggling newspaper publisher and television station operator Media General received executive compensation valued at more than $2 million during 2007, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday.
Marshall N. Morton, who is also president of the company, received a base salary of $925,000, almost an 18 percent increase from the year before, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A large portion of Morton’s compensation came from the value of stock and option awards. The awards, granted Jan. 31, 2007, had a total value that day of $844,719, according to the filing.
He received no bonus, unlike in 2006, when he received $475,592.
Poor baby. No bonus last year. How will he make ends meet??
While the company has laid off employees (and many in the remaining staff are fearful of more job cuts), and eliminated news sections to save $$$, Media General is begging the FCC to allow it to consolidate print and broadcast news operations throughout the country as it does at the Newscenter in Tampa, which is grandfathered and exempt from cross-ownership regulations.
The good news, however, is that MG is bringing its female-oriented and wildly inappropriately named Skirt! publication to town, the Biz Journal tells us. Good news if you are a snarky columnist who writes about MG blunders from time to time (see: Orange.) Here’s the ad the Trib wrote recently looking for Skirt! advertising execs. Note the way-too-hip graphics, tres New Frontier:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Nov. 19, 2007, at 4:55 pm
The parent company of the Tampa Tribune says it will downsize two positions out of its Washington operation and change its structure. Gone will be longtime national correspondent Gil Klein and MG’s military affairs reporter, James Crawley, who was set to serve as president of the national Military Reporters and Editors group. (Given the Bush administration’s openness on military intel and national security, I guess you can do without a crack military journalist.)
E&P reports that details aren’t set but the reorganization will see the four remaining positions converted to — repeat after me — multimedia journalists. Grab those video cameras on the way out the door, scribes. The changes seemed to have even those who are staying at a loss for answers:
Under the reorganization, [bureau chief Marsha] Mercer will remain, along with national correspondent Sean Mussenden and Tampa Tribune reporter Billy House. Two more “multimedia” reporters and a web producer will be added, Mercer said.
“I don’t know really where we are going, it hasn’t really been spelled out,” said House. “I am not sure I have all of the answers.”
Media General’s print division, and especially the Trib, has been taking it in the shorts in the revenue department, as I’ve outlined on several occasions. Dropping revenues were blamed earlier this year for the company laying off 70 employees in Tampa.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Oct. 19, 2007, at 1:24 am
Quarterlies are out and even the normally solid broadcast division took it in the shorts at Media General, which owns the Tampa Tribune/Newschannel 8/TBO.com. Profits off 26 percent over same quarter last year, according to Broadcast Newsroom.
If you’re a shareholder, you’ve got to be bummed to read that the company isn’t considering spinning off the losing newspaper division:
Media General said Thursday that it has no plans to separate its newspaper and broadcast businesses.
In its earnings release, the company stated, “Customers and shareholders alike benefit from the company’s focus on being the local multimedia leader in strong growth markets, principally in the Southeast. Media General’s integrated presence in print, broadcast and on the Web enables the company to produce better journalism, deliver a higher-quality product, draw more audience and improve its market position better than it otherwise could.”
That also means that Media General knows that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s plans to allow more duopoly cross-ownership are hardwired, because the chain is staking everything on its convergence model being demonstrated in the Tampa Bay market.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 29, 2007, at 3:43 pm
Since the Tampa Tribunelaid off 70 employees in April, I’ve heard from some suvivors of those cuts that they expect another round this fall, that they’ve been all but told to expect it by their bosses. If the latest Media General financials for the month of April are any indication, there are indeed rougher times ahead.
The April revenue report continues to show that the Trib is a tremendous drag on Media General’s publishing division, where revenues were down 6.5 percent in April 2007 vs. one year ago. All other Media General divisions made money; the fledgling revenues of the online division even rose by more than one-third over April 2006.
Some lowlights from the report, released last week:
Classified advertising revenues — jobs, auto and real estate mostly — at the Trib were 35 percent lower than one year ago.
National display ads were up 11 percent, thanks to heavy spending by Verizon to tout its new fiber optic services.
Ad linage — the number of column inches of ads sold in April 2007 — was down 24 percent over a year ago. It’s down that same percentage on a year-to-date basis.
Tribune revenues were down 15 percent overall.
That kind of bad financial news has combined with the voluntary departure of Trib writers such as Michael Fechter, Mari Robyn Jones (night cops reporter, going to grad school after some travel) and Richard Lardner (military affairs, got a national job with the Associated Press) to create a pall among some Trib scribes.
Finally, there is digital hope:
The good news: The Trib’s online sister, TBO.com, posted up a 35 percent increase in page views, to more than 22 million in the month of April. The downside: Online revenues are a fraction of the $$ brought in by the publishing and broadcasting divisions. In other words, readers are finding news and info online; but advertisers aren’t buying it — yet.
(Note: The St. Petersburg Times is a privately held company and doesn’t release its financial performance, so no comparison with the Trib’s numbers.)
