‘Radiate Success’ Stories From MFM 2014

The members of MFM and our BCCA subsidiary held Media Finance Focus 2014 — our 54^th annual conference — in Miami last week. Our theme of “Radiate Success” was fulfilled in multiple ways.

First, the Sunshine State treated us to some spectacular weather for travel and, thanks to our sponsors, several terrific networking events under a Miami moon.

Second, we were treated to insights from more than 150 industry experts who shared their time and counsel to help us identify strategies that will allow our member companies to radiate success despite the many challenges that cloud the industry’s outlook.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, we celebrated the accomplishments of peers whose examples and inspiring words helped us to see more clearly how we can become the beacons of change our organizations need to achieve success in an evolving media industry.

Two of this year’s top honorees have strong ties to TV broadcasting: Jim Woodward, CFO of Media General, and Dean Rohrbaugh, director of tax at Graham Holdings. Since following their lead is sure to help you radiate success regardless of your role or current responsibilities, I would like to pass along a bit of their stories.

Jim Woodward was named Media General’s CFO in 2011, one of the company’s most challenging periods in its 164-year history. It was heavily leveraged and faced looming debt maturities. Woodward realized renegotiating the company’s debt wasn’t going to be enough. And although the company’s roots were in print dating back to the launch of the Richmond Dispatch in 1850, its TV stations, which were generating 85% of the company’s cash flow, were the more valuable properties.

Woodward, who had been with the company for all 30 years since he graduated from college, knew the difficult decision to sell its newspaper group was also the right one. In setting about the task of finding the best buyer, he sought out Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Group, which would also need to acquire the management group running the 60-plus newspaper division and thereby preserve those jobs. “I felt really good that those assets were going to a good home,” he recalls.

The sale of the newspaper group was only part of the transformation Woodward engendered. In the two years since then, Media General combined its TV stations with the Young Broadcasting Group under publicly traded Media General’s Richmond-based management team. And this spring it announced plans to combine with LIN Media, which will create the second-largest “pure-play TV station group.” Combined, the deals represent growth from 18 stations reaching 8% of all U.S. TV households to 74 stations in 46 markets reaching 23%.

It was Woodward’s role in the company’s dramatic turnaround that led MFM to select him to receive our Distinguished CFO Award. What pleases me even more than seeing him receive this well-deserved honor is the recognition from his fellow members of the Media General senior management team.

When he heard the news, Media General president-CEO George L. Mahoney, had this to say: “Jim’s leadership has been invaluable in the rapid transformation of Media General into a pure-play local television broadcasting and digital media company, with a strong balance sheet and significant future growth potential. From the sale of our newspapers, to our completed merger with Young Broadcasting and pending merger with LIN Media, and the various associated financings, Jim has been an innovative and tireless contributor to our many successful outcomes. I’m delighted to see Jim receive this well-deserved recognition from such a prestigious industry organization.”

And there was this observation from Marshal Morton, Media General’s vice chairman: “I’ve never known a man who enjoyed thinking through something as much as Jim. He talks to other people who are good sounding boards when he’s working his way through an issue; there’s no question. But he comes up with good solutions on his own. And they’ve proved themselves time and time again.”

For Woodward’s part, he sees his role at Media General as part and parcel of a CFO’s job at any media company today. He told his fellow attendees at Media Finance Focus 2014, “In media finance, our role has changed due to the dynamic business environment in which our companies operate. The competitive nature of the business, ever-changing technology and customer viewing habits and the pace of consolidation all create exciting opportunities for finance professionals to have a key role in influencing the future direction of our companies. We’re in a good position to drive outcomes that affect long-term business performance and grow shareholder value.”

That aptitude for influencing the future direction of a media company is also evident in another of this year’s honorees, Dean Rohrbaugh, director of tax information systems at Graham Holdings, formerly the Washington Post Co. Rohrbaugh, who has been with the company for 38 years, was among the people who were key to the very intricate process of separating the newspaper from the company’s other assets, which include the Post-Newsweek TV station group. And while the Post’s legendary leader Katherine Graham once asked him to fix her TV set, figuring that his involvement in the TV side of the business made him an expert, it was his expertise in corporate tax that has made him invaluable to the company.

But it’s not just what Dean knows about corporate tax that makes him worthy of our emulation; it’s his commitment to ensuring the implementation of regulations and corporate practices contribute to a company’s — and our industry’s — financial performance.

Examples include his work on the industry’s compliance with a 2006 FCC requirement that forced TV stations to give up some of their frequency allocation to the telephone company Nextel also gave them something in return: a requirement for Nextel to provide them with new digital equipment that would allow them to do a lot more with the reduced spectrum.

Dean worked with his tax colleagues across the country to ensure that this new digital equipment didn’t come with tax strings attached. After all, it wasn’t the TV stations’ decision to make the change that required the new equipment.

Rohrbaugh has been very active in the industry’s Media Industry Tax Group. He was instrumental in co-locating the organization’s gathering with MFM’s annual conference, which began around the time of the Great Recession. “He wanted to make sure the [Tax] group continued to survive and meet and share ideas at a time when companies had put travel bans in place,” explained Tim Pecaro, a principal at Bond & Pecaro, which provides financial valuation other services for numerous media companies, including The Washington Post/Graham Holdings.

In addition to forging the mutually beneficial relationship between MFM and the Media Industry Tax Group, Rohrbaugh has been very active on MFM’s Tax Committee and as a member of our board of directors. In recognition of all he has done for our association and the broadcast industry, he received MFM’s Jack Zwaska Career Achievement Award, named after a former executive director of the Television Music Licensing Committee. This award is given to recognize a past or current MFM member whose efforts have contributed to the growth of our association and the industries we serve.

Our other top honorees this year include, Linda Powell, director of credit and collections at Cablevision Media Sales, who received the BCCA Contributor Award, and Robin Szabo, president of Szabo Associates, who received our Chairman’s Award, in memory of Edward Deichman which is presented to someone who has made a lasting contribution to the growth and expansion of MFM by providing ongoing support and leadership.

Thanks to our magazine editor, Janet Stilson you can read more about these and other exemplary leaders in the May-June 2014 issue of The Financial Manager, which is currently available on our website: www.mediafinance.org.

Mary M. Collins is president and CEO of the Media Financial Management Association and its BCCA subsidiary. She can be reached at [email protected]. Her column appears in TVNewsCheck every other week. You can read her earlier columns here.