Buffett to buy 63 newspapers

[Geee]

Omaha.com:

Warren Buffett made good Thursday on his promise to buy more newspapers, agreeing to buy 63 daily and weekly newspapers in the Southeast for $142 million from financially troubled Media General Inc. of Richmond, Va.

The newspapers, in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida, would be combined with the Omaha World-Herald Co. into a new Berkshire Hathaway Inc. division called BH Media Group. They would be managed by World Media Enterprises, a new sister company of The World-Herald.

“In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper,” said Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire, in a press release. “The many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold, and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway.”

The purchase includes the newspapers' web sites, printing operations and related businesses. Berkshire would make a debt-refinancing loan to Media General, which would keep its TV stations and sell separately the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, its largest newspaper.

The sale would close June 25, subject to Federal Trade Commission and anti-trust reviews.

The largest newspapers in the acquired group are the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which sells about 115,000 copies on weekdays and 165,000 on Sundays, and the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, which sells about 58,000 copies daily and 76,000 on Sundays.

Altogether, the 17 daily newspapers sell about 400,000 copies on weekdays. World-Herald Co. dailies' weekday circulation is about 200,000.

[SrWoodchuck]

New media empire? The "Progressive Buffet" chain of newsrags? The "Oracle of Oligarchy?"

 

I can see that in order to be green......those "yellow" sheets would have to be read with blue-tinted glasses.