Cox selling Palm Beach Post, Austin American-Statesman

And various community papers.

Cox Media Group to sell The Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Daily News

 

Not sure what the landscape is for potential Austin buyers, but in Palm Beach you've got Gannett ownership to the north and west and Tronc to the south. GateHouse also has a large presence in the state.

 

Hearst is buying newspapers and owns San Antonio and Houston and maybe some other properties in Texas. Hearst also has a lot of money which tends to help. I think Tronc nabs Palm Beach. Tronc owns Ft. Lauderdale and at least in California bought San Diego and tried to buy Orange County until the Feds said no for antitrust reasons.

 

It’s not the first time Cox Enterprises, the privately held parent company of Cox Media Group, has put the Statesman up for sale. The company also did so in August 2008, then took the newspaper off the market in August 2009

 

Plus, Gatehouse has the facility in Austin. Would seem to be a natural.

 

The Statesman might be too big a meal for the GateHouse snake to swallow: 129K daily, 183K Sunday. They got the LVRJ in the Stephens deal and quickly spun it off to Adelson. They also passed on Stephens’ half of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

(Yes, I know Columbus is 137K daily. Who’s to say GateHouse isn’t looking to sell it?)

 

Who says they are?

 

Cox is privately held which means they do have a fiduciary responsibility to the public shareholders to sell at the highest price. I wonder if the Cox family would walk away from some extra Gatehouse money to sell to someone relatively speaking a little less interested in slashing costs like Tronc or Hearst.

These papers have been n the market before. Cox may be looking for some rich benefactor liek Glen Taylor in Minneapolis to come in and if no one shows pull them back off the market. I was surprised by the public announcement.

 

A friend at Cox was nice enough to pass along the memo to employees announcing the sale (complete with the obligatory "exciting times" and other buzzwords):


Team CMG,

As you recall, in August we announced Phase 1 of our business realignment strategy, as we moved to align our Executive Leadership Team EVPs by market rather than by platform with a goal of converging and integrating our markets where we own more than one media property. Our leaders and their teams in those “integrated” markets – Orlando, Jacksonville, Tulsa, and Atlanta – have been working hard on how best to pull our different media assets together as a united front.

Today, I am sharing additional details on our business alignment strategy.

After careful consideration, the Executive Leadership Team and I have made the difficult but strategic decision to put our stand-alone newspapers up for sale, which includes the Palm Beach newspapers, the Austin American-Statesman and related Texas community newspapers.

As you know, our company got its start nearly 120 years ago with a single newspaper in Dayton, and we have a long history of award-winning journalism in all of our newspaper markets. We continue to have strong belief in the Fourth Estate and the value strong journalism plays in our democracy. But as the business continues to change, we must adapt our business strategy to navigate these disruptive times for the benefit of our entire media portfolio. We have made the decision that we will be better equipped to operate our newspapers in Atlanta and Ohio, where we have the integrated opportunity with our TV and radio operations.

Today, we met with the leadership teams and employees in Austin and Palm Beach to share this decision. We are in the early stages of this sale process, but you have my commitment to keep you informed as we go. We are deeply grateful to our employees in Austin and Palm Beach for the great work they have done, and they can expect the same level of cooperation from everyone at Cox and CMG as we move through this process.

With our decision to sell the two newspapers, Executive VP Mike Joseph has decided to retire from CMG, effective this Friday, Nov. 3. Mike has been a valued leader and proud representative of the industry and CMG for many years. The entire leadership team thanks him for his tireless dedication to CMG and our newspaper businesses over the last 22 years and wish him all the best with his next chapter.

With Mike’s exit, we are realigning the reporting structure as follows:

• The Palm Beach Post and the Austin American-Statesman will report to Brian Cooperduring the sale and transition process. Brian will step away from his role at the AJC to lead this effort and will report directly to me. He will also oversee our Newspaper Shared Services and determine how they best support Palm Beach and Austin during the sale, as well as our Atlanta and CMG Ohio businesses going forward.
• CMG Technology, led by VP Mark Beck, will now also report to me.
• CMG Digital and the Digital Revenue Operations teams led by VP Joe Weir will report to EVP Marian Pittman.
• The Ideabar, CMG’s full-service advertising agency led by Managing Director Amy Royster, will report to VP of Strategy and Corporate Development Derek Robinson. CMG will retain the Ideabar franchise as we continue to build on its success.
• CMG Healthcare, led by Executive Director Walt Phillips, will report to EVP Bill Hendrich.
• VP of Multi-Market Sales Eric Myers and VP of Multi-Market Audience Mark Medici will now report to EVP Jane Williams as part of the Atlanta market team.

Within the next two weeks, Jane will announce a new leadership structure for the Atlanta market team. Stay tuned for those details.

This is one of the most exciting times for our company. Change is never easy, but we feel these are the right moves for CMG to chart a path to a long and successful future. We will remain true to our values, and it is our mission to deliver quality journalism, innovative products and exceptional service to our communities and advertisers for the long haul.

Thank you for your leadership and tireless contributions to help make CMG a best-in-class media company.

Kim Guthrie

 

I try not to wish ill fortune on anyone but I make an exceptions for anyone who describes a potential layoff- which would come almost immediately after a sale at these papers- as exciting. A pox on Kim Guthrie.

 

"With our decision to sell the two newspapers, Executive VP Mike Joseph has decided to retire from CMG, effective this Friday, Nov. 3."

I wonder if this means, "Get the hell out of here, Mike!" or, "Get me the hell out of here!"

 

They rewrote the script from the usual "leaving to spend more time with his family" or "leaving to pursue other opportunities."