{"id":864,"date":"2008-04-02T07:38:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-02T13:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=864"},"modified":"2008-04-02T07:38:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-02T13:38:00","slug":"media-strategy-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/04\/media-strategy-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Strategy 101"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcaps\">S<\/span>o how would you turn around a medium-sized media company like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediageneral.com\/\">this one<\/a>? Here\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/216539\/000095014208000718\/dfan14a_media040108.htm\">one plan<\/a> from VCs Harbinger [Big HT: <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.innovationsinnewspapers.com\/index.php\/2008\/04\/02\/change-must-star-in-the-top-the-harbinger-view\/\">Juan Giner<\/a>]: <span id=\"fullpost\"><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Restart Broadcast Division<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Implement  substantial increase in management attention and  higher standards given its severe underperformance relative to peers<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Pursue duopolies<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Pursue cable retransmission consent opportunities<\/span><\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Reduce spending and apply more scrutiny to cost\/benefit and payback analysis<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Be opportunistic but disciplined with future acquisitions and divestitures<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Improve Publishing Division<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cut costs more aggressively<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Implement higher standards given its underperformance<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Reduce spending and apply more scrutiny to cost\/benefit and payback analysis<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Be opportunistic but disciplined with future acquisitions and divestitures<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Most urgently, consider alternatives for Florida market properties<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Refocus the Online\/Interactive Strategy<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exit non-core businesses&#8230;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Avoid further acquisitions of non-core online ventures that require national platform or brand to maximize value or that don\u2019t provide unique strategic synergy<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Focus instead on enhancing the websites of the company\u2019s core television and newspaper properties to directly leverage and magnify their content, reach and value and produce meaningful incremental cash flows<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>What did the CEO of the company <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mediageneral.com\/press\/2008\/april1_08.html\">think<\/a> of the scheme (my italics)?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There isn\u2019t any question that media companies are currently out of favor on The Street. Media General gets painted with the same brush as the rest. People are concerned, more than anything, about the effect of the Internet on advertising budgets and the need for consumers to subscribe to a newspaper, or buy it at a newsstand, in order to have access to local news and information, including advertisers&#8217; messages, and including classified ads.<\/p>\n<p>Well, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">that model has shifted, and I think we\u2019ve now mostly taken our hits on that<\/span>. But, importantly, we believe that the \u201caudience aggregation\u201d model remains very solid, and we think we\u2019re gaining additionally on our ability to deliver segments of our local markets to advertisers, precisely because of the new opportunities presented by the Internet and the ease of entry for new products that goes with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So cut and burn plays dark whistling desperation. Choices, choices.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So how would you turn around a medium-sized media company like this one? Here\u2019s one plan from VCs Harbinger [Big HT: Juan Giner]: Restart Broadcast Division Implement substantial increase in management attention and higher standards given its severe underperformance relative to peers Pursue duopolies Pursue cable retransmission consent opportunities Reduce spending and apply more scrutiny [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-biz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}