ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 8, 1997 TAG: 9701080024
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on January 9, 1997.
Clarification
Media General Inc. has announced it will purchase the Potomoc News in
Woodbridge for $48 million. A graphic that accompanied a story Wednesday
indicated the company already owns the paper.
Media General Inc. of Richmond has completed its purchase of Park Acquisitions Inc., parent of Roanoke's WSLS (Channel 10), the company announced Tuesday. The deal is expected to bolster the station and make the Roanoke television market more competitive.
The $710 million cash merger, first announced in July, adds 10 network-affiliated television stations, 28 daily community newspapers and 82 weekly newspapers to the company's holdings.
Media General, whose flagship property is the Richmond Times-Dispatch, now owns 20 daily newspapers, 13 television stations and almost 100 weekly newspapers.
The Richmond company also assumed Park's $476 million in debt.
Bill Foy, news director of WSLS, said he doesn't know whether the station's new owners will change local operations, because Media General couldn't discuss plans for individual properties until the deal had closed. But the arrival of the Richmond company likely will step up competition for news in Southwest Virginia, he said.
Media General owns both the Lynchburg and Danville newspapers, which may pave the way for cooperation between the Roanoke station and the two publications, Foy said. Stewart Bryan III, president, CEO and chairman of Media General, said such a plan is already being considered in Tampa, Fla., where the company owns a newspaper and a television station.
Bryan said the company is conducting viewer research in the Roanoke area and will know in three or four months what changes might be made. The general managers of the 10 Park stations will keep their jobs, he said.
Any movement at WSLS will be watched closely by long-time competitor WDBJ (Channel 7), said that station's manager, Robert Lee. But his station isn't planning to alter its news programming in response to the change in ownership at WSLS, he said.
Purchase of the Park properties is the culmination of a nine-year restructuring effort, Bryan said. The company has been trying to turn its focus back to the Southeast by selling properties in other markets and purchasing newspapers and TV stations in the region.
Media General posted profits of $51.6 million, or $1.94 per share, on revenues of $565.4 million in the first nine months of 1996, the most recent figures. Its common stock, traded on the American Stock Exchange, closed Tuesday at $29.62 1/2 a share, down 87 1/2 cents from Monday.
The company has spent nearly $1 billion on acquisitions over the last 15 months. In 1995, its subsidiary Virginia Newspapers Inc. bought daily newspapers in Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Culpeper and Suffolk and several weeklies from Worrell Enterprises Inc. of Charlottesville for $230 million. Early in 1996, the company purchased the daily Danville Register & Bee for $38 million.
The company now has access to 22.1 percent of the television homes in the Southeast, compared with the 9.2 percent that the company's existing stations reached, Bryan said.
Media General also announced the sale and exchange of properties in markets outside the Southeast. The company plans to sell a number of its community newspapers, including 18 former Park properties. It also will sell WUTR in Utica, N.Y., formerly a Park station.
The company also plans to exchange the former Park television station WTVR in Richmond for affiliates in Savannah, Ga., and Jackson, Miss. The Federal Communications Commission does not allow a company to own daily newspapers and television stations in the same community. Media General's arrangement in Tampa, Fla., where it owns both, was already in place when the FCC passed the law.
WSLS signed on the air in December 1952. The station's coverage area stretches from Grayson County east to Charlotte County and from the North Carolina line to Pocahontas County, W.Va. The station employs more than 70 people.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Media General. color. KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB