Cox buys back Dayton Daily News

Cox Enterprises buys back Ohio newspapers; 7-day publication continues

Probably not the worst-case scenario for the newspapers, but still strikes me as kind of a weird deal.

 

Someone bought both the television station in Dayton and the paper from Cox. But the FCC has a 50 year old rule that the buyer of a television station can not own a newspaper that publishes more than three times a week in the same market. The new owner asked for and was denied a waiver so they faced the choice of reducing publishing to thee times a week or selling the paper. Gannett would have been the likely buyer since they already own Cincinnati and Columbus.

James Cox started the Cox media empire in Dayton and was the Governor of Ohio. I don't think the Cox family wanted to see Dayton go to a paper that only published three times a week or be sold to a hedge fund or Gannett so they bought it back.