Norfolk, Milwaukee - am I missing any?

I've heard a lot of similar complaints in TV -- the GM is always from the sales side, never the news side -- and you're exactly right.

Several years ago my station promoted a guy to GM whose experience was entirely in news. Nice guy, but a complete mess as GM... and was a giant pain in the ass for new to deal with. He didn't last long. Current GM is from a sales background and is infinitely better.

 

Not just off-season. If a coach gets fired or a player gets suspended mid-season, local media likely won't be the first to report it.

 

Depends on the local media. There are some tenacious local guys still out there. Evan Grant's pretty damn good in Dallas, Dejan Kovacevic in Pittsburgh, John Fay in Cincinnati, etc. (No, I'm not friends with any of them. lol) It just depends on the market.

Funny we should bring up Kansas City. The Star has done a kick-ass job on the special sections, but it's the pessimist in me that wonders whether McClatchy will order massive space cuts following the World Series because too much newsprint was used... (rolls eyes)

 

Has the Royals run moved the Star's product? Because if such a thing were any longer possible it would be there.

 

So Milwaukee no longer has a sports columnist?

 

Favors the beat person as insider/expert, I believe.

 

Hunt had already been scaled back off columns and was on the Marquette beat the last two or three seasons. They'd occasionally let him write a column, but it was more like one or two a month rather than three or four a week.

That company went from owning the city and big parts of the state with two papers and TV and radio stations to being near extinction. The broadcast properties will not be headquartered in Milwaukee when this Scripps merger is finalized. The paper will be supposedy headquartered in Milwaukee, but the owners really aren't in or from Milwaukee. The Journal Sentinel is dying a very ugly death that is painful to watch. The product is so diminished now that they can't even advertise it as an important part of the community.

 

I looked up the financial reports. The Journal had operating earnings of 13 million dollars in 2013. I wonder if Gannett, once the publishing arm is spun off, will start buying properties like the Journal. These properties are for sale at 4-5 times cash flow. So a chain could come in, cut costs some more and pay off the investment in five-six years if they cans stabilize the revenue picture. Are there buyers out there are is the perception that there is now ay to stanch the revenue losses annually?

 

That's the impression I've gotten as well.

 

FYI (or FWIW), Michael Hunt has confirmed via his Facebook page he's taking the buyout at MJS.