Meredith

After buying Time Inc. for $2.8 billion, Meredith is the largest magazine company in the United States, but it’s not about to change its unassuming style.

Less than a week after taking over Time Inc., Meredith is planning to ax 700 people in its Tampa, Fla., Time Customer Service center.

In his new role, Harty, 55, will continue to lead Meredith’s National and Local Media Groups, and direct the integration of the Time Inc. acquisition. He will add responsibility for Meredith’s finance and legal functions. Current CEO Steve Lacy will become executive chairman.

Amid what is relatively light turn-of-the-year infighting between broadcasters and their MVPD partners, WideOpenWest-owned Atlanta-area operator NuLink has lost access to Meredith’s local CBS affiliate WGCL and co-owned independent WPCH (Peachtree TV).

Patrick McCreery will have oversight of all the Meredith Local Media Group station operations and general managers and will continue to be based in Phoenix.

Time Inc. announced on Sunday night that it had sold itself to the Meredith Corp., in a deal backed by Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes. Under the terms of the deal, Meredith will pay $18.50 a share for Time — the publisher of once-premier glossy titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People — in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The boards of Time Inc. and Meredith finalized the deal on Sunday evening.

While the just-reported quarter saw an expected big drop in political money, local core was up 4%, to $88 million, a gain of approximately $3.5 million. According to Chairman-CEO Steve Lacy, growth in core should pick up steam going forward, with gains expected in the mid- to high single-digit range.

Meredith will debut an hour evening newscast in Atlanta produced by its CBS affiliate in Atlanta on its independent outlet there.

The station group and owner of DirecTV and U-Verse cannot come to terms on a new retransmission consent pack and so exchanging harsh words on their website in battle for hearts and minds of consumers.

He is Steve Doerr, most recently a news consultant with Crawford Johnson & Northcott. But he has had a slew of local TV management jobs in markets including Philadelphia, Washington, Dallas, Providence and Columbus, Ohio. WGCL is a Meredith CBS affiliate.

2016 Spot Revenue: $505.9 million Stations: 28 in 12 markets Coverage:10.8% Ownership: Meredith Corp. (NYSE: MDP) Key Executives: Stephen M. Lacy, chairman-CEO; Tom Harty, president-CEO; Paul Karpowicz, president, Meredith Local Media Group. What’s Up: […]

Chairman-CEO Steve Lacy said that the Local Media Group’s core advertising is pacing down low- to mid-single digits. On the plus side, automotive is pacing up, as are food and home, while professional services and fast food restaurants are dragging.

Big drops in political and Super Bowl revenue were offset by an increase in retrans money and digital.

The FCC said on Monday it approved Time Warner’s sale of WPCH Atlanta to Meredith Corp. for $70 million, a transaction that could help speed Time Warner’s planned merger with AT&T.

A Connecticut state lawmaker has stepped in to try to end a two-month retrans battle that has kept Meredith’s CBS affiliate WFSB Hartford, Conn., off of Altice USA’s Optimum cable system. Sen. Gayle Slossberg is spearheading a petition to have the FCC intervene in the impasse.

Meredith has been operating the Time Warner-owned independent through joint sales and shared services agreements since 2011. T ime Warner is in the process of merging with AT&T and WPCH is its only station. Disposing of WPCH might help Time Warner side-step FCC review of the merger, which the parties have been pushing for in Washington.

After reporting a good 4Q 2016, the company says that the upcoming 1Q will be a loss-leader with lower local ad dollars chiefly because the Super Bowl is on Fox rather than CBS like last year. Meredith doesn’t have as many Fox affils.

Political spending hits $40 million, 37% more than in the same quarter of 2014. But core takes a 11.2% tumble partly because of crowding out by political spots. Political was particularly strong in Las Vegas, St. Louis, Phoenix and Kansas City because of down ballot races, the company said.

The new agreement extends affiliation for Meredith’s stations in Atlanta, Phoenix, Kansas City and Flint, Mich. In addition, all seven of Meredith’s CBS Affiliates renew for local live streams on CBS All Access and commit to Hulu Live multichannel digital service and some future digital distribution deals.

As the Time Inc. drama played out for a second day, some media insiders were betting that Meredith Corp. will soon enter the fray and trigger a potential bidding war against the billionaire trio of Edgar Bronfman Jr., Len Blavatnik and Ynon Kreiz for the well-known publisher.

The Meredith Corp. board of directors yesterday declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.4950 per share, or $1.98 on an annual basis. The dividend will be payable on Dec. 15 to shareholders of record on Nov. 30. Meredith has paid a dividend for 69 consecutive years and has increased its dividend for the past 23 years.

Fiscal first quarter revenue gains were solely the result of political, which increased $14 million to $16 million, more than making up for a 6% drop ($5.126 million) drop in non-political advertising. That drop in core was largely contained within its four hot political markets, largely due to displacement.

Bolstered by gains in political advertising, retransmission consent fees and digital advertising (up 22%), the company reported total revenue for its 17-station Local Media Group increased to $153 million.

Meredith Corp. is bringing its Allrecipes Dinner Spinner app to televisions across the nation. Titled Dinner Spinner, the weekly half-hour, cooking competition show will begin airing on the CW Network Oct. 1 at 11 a.m

He will will oversee Meredith’s National and Local Media Groups. Jon Werther is tapped to succeed him as National Media Group president.

The Meredith Corp. board of directors today declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.4950 per share, or $1.98 on an annual basis. The dividend will be payable on Sept.15 to shareholders of record on Aug. 31.

The TV group has done well with campaign advertising so far, but says there’s a lot more to come. And CEO Stephen Lacy is ready to jump back into M&A mode once the spectrum auction is completed and the station trading market comes back to life.

Bolstered by gains in retransmission consent fees and digital advertising (up 13%), the company reported total revenue for its 17-station Local Media Group increased to $141 million. For the company’s full fiscal year, the group’s revenue was up 3% to $548 million.

That’s double what the publisher of Martha Stewart Living was producing last year, Jemma Brackebush reports. She looks more closely at the company’s centralized approach with a team of 30 taking a lot of guidance from audience data, along with its more experimental efforts on Facebook Live.

Inform Inc. today announced partnership renewals with the 17 television stations in Meredith’s Local Media Group, including Atlanta, Phoenix, St. Louis and Portland. Meredith stations have been partners with inform since 2014, licensing their local news and entertainment videos to the more than 5,000 publishers that use Inform’s video platform.

The Meredith Corp. board of directors today declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.495 per share, or $1.98 on an annual basis. The dividend will be payable on June 15 to shareholders of record on May 31. Meredith said it has paid dividends for 69 consecutive years, increasing them for 23 years straight.

Bolstered also by gains in retransmission consent fees and digital media (up 15%), the company reported total revenue for Local Media Group with its 17 stations increased 14.7% to $140.9 million.

Today, stations owned by Meredith began notifying their viewers that Charter Cable may drop the stations from its lineup after April 30. Meredith said: “By law, cable companies must negotiate in good faith with television stations before dropping a television station’s signal.” If Charter fails to reach an agreement, the Meredith stations’ programming will not be available on Charter systems after April 30.

In a new deal with Unconventional Studios, Meredith will provide “lifestyle” content to the Trifecta Entertainment-distributed Celebrity Page, which has been airing since 2013 as OK!TV.

Meredith Corp. is interested in buying some of Tribune’s broadcast TV stations, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. Meredith would be particularly keen on some of the 19 stations Tribune added when it acquired Local TV in 2013, one of the people said. Tribune also plans to speak with private equity firms interested in expanding their media portfolios, one of the people said.

Meredith Corp. is considering splitting its broadcast and publishing units, perhaps uniting one with a strategic partner, according to CEO Stephen Lacy. The idea is one of several possibilities the company is considering after its plan to merge with Media General fell through, Lacy said. The company is also contemplating acquisitions to add more media properties and advertising technology, he said, without providing details.