News Broadcasting
Media General completes purchase of four NBC TV stations
MUMBAI: Media General, Inc. has completed its previously announced acquisition of four NBC stations.
The stations and their designated market areas (DMAs) are: WNCN in Raleigh, WCMH in Columbus, WVTM in Birmingham and WJAR in Providence.
All four stations are ranked among the top three in their respective markets. The stations are located in large, growing markets, and all four produce attractive operating and cash flow margins.”This acquisition is compelling from both an operational and financial perspective. Investors can be highly confident of our ability to execute as planned. We’ve successfully integrated numerous acquisitions. We achieved or exceeded our projected operating synergies, and we repaid debt as quickly as, or faster than, projected,” said Media General president and CEO Marshall N. Morton.
“We are especially pleased to add Raleigh-Durham to our Southeast footprint. In Birmingham, WVTM has a broader signal than WIAT, the CBS station we currently own there, so we will reach more households. The Columbus and Providence stations are located in political battleground states, so they benefit greatly from campaign spending, especially in Presidential election years,” he added.
The acquisition increases Media General’s number of NBC stations from five to nine and makes the company NBC’s third largest independent affiliate, further enhancing its relationship with the network. The addition of these four stations will improve the profit contribution mix of Media General’s Publishing and Broadcast segments, from approximately 60 per cent (publishing) and 40 per cent (broadcast) to approximately 50/50.
“We have conservatively estimated operating synergies of $3 million annually by 2008. The synergies will come from enhanced revenues, which are expected to result from the implementation of Media General’s sales training and systems as well as its inventory management and pricing processes. Cost reductions will result from bringing the new stations into Media General’s Central Traffic Operation and from centralizing Master Control for all of its NBC stations,” said Morton.
The new NBC stations add approximately 450 employees. “We are very impressed with the quality of the local management and staff,” he added.
The acquisition will immediately and significantly improve the Broadcast Division’s operating margin and drive meaningful growth in its revenues and segment cash flow.
“Substantial free cash flow generated by our four new stations will enable us to quickly reduce the debt we incur to finance the acquisition,” said Morton. He added that at the end of 2006, the company expects its leverage multiple to be four times and that it will be reduced to 2.5 times by the end of 2008.
The cash transaction cost approximately $600 million. Future cash tax savings will result from a step-up in basis that is allowed for an asset purchase and the related amortisation and depreciation deductions. The net transaction value, reduced by the present value of the expected tax savings, is approximately $450 million. Including the tax benefits and synergies, the transaction represents a multiple of less than 10.0 times 2004-2005 average broadcast cash flow for the four stations.
The acquisition ultimately will be funded from three sources: drawing on the company’s existing $1 billion credit facility, issuing new public or bank term debt that includes $100 million for the acquisition and the refinancing of $200 million of existing notes due September 2006, and at least $100 million in net proceeds from the divestiture of assets previously identified as non-core.
Media General is in the process of selling its CBS affiliate in Wichita, including that station’s three satellites, and its CBS stations in Birmingham, Ala., Mason City, Iowa, and Chattanooga, Tenn.
“There is substantial interest in the stations to be sold, and we expect to complete the sale of all the stations by the end of the year,” said Morton.
As part of the acquisition of the NBC stations, Media General was granted a six-month duopoly waiver in Birmingham by the Federal Communications Commission, and the company has entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to divest its CBS affiliate within six months.
News Broadcasting
Senior media executive Madhu Soman exits Zee Media
Former Reuters and Bloomberg leader says he leaves with “no regrets” after brief stint at WION and Zee Business
NOIDA: Madhu Soman, a veteran of global newsrooms and media sales floors, has stepped away from Zee Media Corporation after a short stint steering business strategy for WION and Zee Business.
In a reflective LinkedIn note marking his departure, Soman said his time within the network’s corridors was always likely to be brief. “Some chapters close faster than expected,” he wrote, signalling the end of a nearly two-year spell in which he oversaw both editorial partnerships and commercial strategy.
Soman joined Zee Media in 2022 after more than a decade abroad with Reuters and Bloomberg, returning to India to take on the role of chief business officer for WION and Zee Business. His mandate was ambitious: bridge the newsroom and the revenue desk while expanding digital and broadcast reach.
During the stint, Zee Business reached break-even for the first time since its launch in 2005, while WION refreshed programming and strengthened its digital footprint across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
But Soman suggested the cultural fit proved uneasy. Describing himself as a “cultural misfit”, he hinted at deeper tensions between editorial instincts shaped in global newsrooms and the realities of India’s television news ecosystem.
Before joining Zee, Soman spent more than seven years at Bloomberg in Hong Kong as head of broadcast sales for Asia-Pacific, expanding the company’s news syndication business across several markets. Earlier, he held senior editorial roles at Reuters, overseeing online strategy in India and managing Reuters Video Services from London.
His career began in television and wire reporting, including a stint with ANI during the 1999 Kargil conflict, before moving into digital publishing as India’s internet media landscape took shape.
Now, after nearly three decades in broadcast and digital media, Soman is leaving Delhi NCR and returning to his hometown, Trivandrum.
Exhausted, he admits. But unbowed. And with one quiet line that sums up the journey: he didn’t sell his soul — because some things, after all, are not for sale.
