Richmond BizSense
In an exit interview with Michael Schwartz, outgoing Media General CEO Marshall Morton says he'll have no difficulty "unplugging" -- " I was always attempting to look to the next mountaintop and then decide what pathway would be the most productive one to get there," Morton says -- and that selling the conglomerate's newspapers to Warren Buffett was a "relief":

In the past, if we encountered two years of downturn in revenue, we’d have said, “It’s a cycle. It’ll turn around. It always has.” But I did worry about the newspapers. These were our long-term employees who worked hard in a business that had a lot of value in our community. But we just were not able to make any headway. They did induce concern on my part. We’re talking about real people here. So to find an owner like Warren Buffett or Berkshire Hathaway, it was the answer. I’m not going to call it too good to be true, but it was the answer we really didn’t allow ourselves to believe would happen.

Related: Media General execs realized in 2011 newspaper decline wasn’t cyclical | Investment adviser: Media General’s leadership ‘still the worst management team around’

Media General
Media General reported strong revenue from automotive, political and Olympics advertising in the third quarter of 2012, but interest on the company's debt and losses from what remained of its newspaper division drove it to a loss of $30.3 million.

Operating income was up nearly $18 million over the third quarter of 2011. Advertising revenue was up 20 percent at the company's TV station websites, where local advertising in particular was up 28 percent. Across its properties, local advertising revenue was up 15.6 percent, to $47 million. Station costs were up, in part because of higher sales commissions, the earnings report says. The company has reduced expenses slightly, partly due to corporate layoffs announced in July, and expects more revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

Media General sold most of its newspapers to Berkshire Hathaway in May and sold The Tampa Tribune, its last remaining newspaper, to a private equity firm earlier this month. Last week, Richard Danielson and Jeff Harrington of the Tampa Bay Times reported Media General sold the Tribune for less than the estimated value of its land and building. Poynter owns the Tampa Bay Times, which competes with the Tribune.

Previously: Media General reports income increase, net loss in second quarter

The Tampa Tribune | Tampa Bay Times | MarketWatch
Media General sold The Tampa Tribune to Revolution Capital Group, the companies announced Monday. The sales price was $9.5 million.

“It’s a bittersweet day for Media General to complete the sale of its last remaining newspaper group,” Media General CEO Marshall Morton said in a press release. "We believe strongly in the value of local content," Revolution managing partner Robert Loring said in the release.

Loring told Tampa Tribune reporter Richard Mullins "We are definitely in this for the long haul. We don't flip businesses." (more...)

Marshall N. Morton will step down as CEO of Media General at the end of 2012, the company announced Wednesday. George L. Mahoney will replace him. Mahoney, the company's release says, "has been responsible for Media General's digital media and mobile operations, including content initiatives that attract new audiences to all of the company's platforms and programs to create new revenue streams." Morton has been with the company for 23 years.

Media General sold all but one of its newspapers to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in May, a deal that refocused the company as primarily a broadcast-television concern and allowed it to refinance its very large debt. Last month the company reported dramatically higher revenue and laid off 75 employees.

“Media General has a very promising future as a television broadcaster, with our portfolio of top ranked stations located in attractive markets,” Mahoney said in the press release.

Media General's Tampa Tribune competes with the Poynter-owned Tampa Bay Times.

Jim Romenesko
Media General President and CEO Marshall Morton tells staffers the reductions, announced Tuesday, are because "the resources that were necessary to support our larger organization are not justifiable in our smaller, more focused company."

When we sold our newspapers last month, we changed from a company with revenues of $616 million in 2011 and approximately 4,000 employees to one that will have revenues this year of about $350 million and about 1,400 employees working at our television stations.

Media General sold all but one of its newspapers to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in May. As part of the deal, Buffett loaned the company $400 million to restructure its crushing debt.

The layoffs, Morton wrote in his memo to staff, are coming in "corporate staff departments and in the digital media section of the Growth and Performance group." Most employees will be terminated as of today.

Previously: Media General reports income increase, net loss in second quarter | Media General execs realized in 2011 that newspaper decline wasn’t cyclical | Investment adviser: Media General’s leadership ‘still the worst management team around’ Disclosure: The Poynter-owned Tampa Bay Times competes with Media General's Tampa Tribune.

Media General
Operating income was up 164 percent at Media General in its second quarter, the company announced today. It attributed the rise to political advertising and retransmission fees, which were up 80 percent. On its balance sheet, the company categorizes the Tampa Tribune, its only remaining newspaper property since it sold most of its newspapers to Berkshire Hathaway in May, as "discontinued operations," a category that also includes Dealtaker.com and a broadcast equipment business. (The Poynter-owned Tampa Bay Times competes with the Tribune.) "Media General is in discussions with prospective buyers for The Tampa Tribune and its associated print and web operations and believes a sale is probable," the company says in a release. (more...)

Project for Excellence in Journalism | The Wall Street Journal
The last 18 months have been "a period of intense change in U.S. newspaper ownership," reports PEJ in the summary for its report "Who Owns the News Media." Companies like Media General and Freedom Communications have ended decades of newspaper ownership (or nearly so; Media General has one paper left) as new players like private investment firms have expanded their holdings. "A total of 71 daily newspapers were sold as part of 11 different transactions during 2011," PEJ says of those sales and the ones so far this year:

Most of the sale prices in these transactions speak to continued softening of the newspaper market. The New York Times Company Regional Group papers were sold for a total of $143 million. Berkshire Hathaway paid a combined $142 million for the Media General properties, which includes 63 weekly and daily papers. (more...)

Richmond BizSense
Media General President and CEO Marshall Morton tells Michael Schwartz that the company didn't realize until 2011 that its newspaper revenue declines were not simply due to the recession:

“Over the past five years, our first thought was that this was heavily due to the recession and, like many other recessions in the past, that this was a cycle. You tighten your belt, freeze hiring and even drop the number of people.

“So we went through a couple years thinking that was the way to handle it. But it kept going.”

It wasn’t until the second quarter of 2011, Morton says, “that we realized the world had changed.”

Morton says the company had considered selling its papers for months, but the deal with Berkshire Hathaway to buy most of its newspapers came together over a matter of days. Key to the deal: Buffett could buy the newspapers and solve Media General's debt problem at the same time: (more...)