Harbinger gets three on MG Board

Not at all sure what it all really means, that's way too "inside the business" for an old dumb ass like me. But it sounds like a big F You from shareholders to MG, which campaigned pretty hard to keep these people off the board.
This went out today:



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 theMeganet.
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

 

Yeah, I'm talking to myself. You got a problem with that?!?

My old friends have to attend a "State of Media General" meeting every year. This, one tells me, is what some heard yesterday:

* We have 60 positions that are currently open and will remain so indefinitely.
* We are narrowing the paper again, along with the aforementioned 16 pages a week we're losing. Yet, we're raising delivery rates again.
* We are no longer delivering to neither the western part of the state nor D.C.
* We closed one of our 10 distribution centers.

One of the things we were told? "The future is web and digital first, but the present demands a dynamic paper."

The future is bright.