Mega TV Merger Will Have Big Impact on WJAR-10 and WPRI-12

GoLocalProv Business Team and Kate Nagle

Mega TV Merger Will Have Big Impact on WJAR-10 and WPRI-12

Impact will be profound in the Providence-DMA.
The most underreported story in Rhode Island is the $1.6 billion acquisition by Channel 10’s parent of Channel 12’s parent company – the impact on Rhode Island’s economy and the media landscape will be profound.  Media General is also assuming nearly $1 billion of LIN Media debt making the deal $2.6 billion. 

The story broke four hours before the FBI and IRS raided Speaker Gordon Fox’s office and so most everyone in the state forgot about one of the biggest business and media stories ever to hit Rhode Island.

Certainly Channel 10 and Channel 12 won’t be reporting on the story.

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The deal announced in March, and functionally under federal review since, has Media General (Channel 10’s parent company) of Richmond, Virginia purchasing Providence-based LIN Media and the result will be the elimination of a significant number of high paying corporate jobs in Rhode Island and a huge impact on the staffing and ownership at WJAR-10, WPRI-12 and Fox-64. 

Locally, will we see the end of The Rhode Show, Nesi Notes and more local broadcasting?

As Chris Eck, Editor of MediaBistro writes about the deal, “Unfortunately, layoffs also lead to increased profitability for local television station owners.”

Impact on the Providence Market

The merger totals $2.6 billion
In all likelihood federal regulators will require Media General to shed either WJAR-10 or WPRI-12. According to documents received by GoLocal, the revenue generated by WJAR-10 is significantly higher than WPRI-12.

Documents show that in 2012, WJAR-10 generated $38.2 million for its Virginia parent company in comparison to WPRI-12 that generated just $21.9 million.  LIN Media owns not only WPRI-12, but also Fox-64 -- and that station generated an additional $12.2 million. 

Federal regulations prohibit broadcast companies from having monopolies in television markets. WJAR-10’s 2012 revenue represented 44% of the TV market, WPRI-12’s revenue was 25.4% and Fox-64 was 14.3% of the market.  Providence is one of the few markets in the Media General and LIN Media merger with the greatest overlap.

Dennis Wharton, Executive V.P. of Communications for the National Association of Broadcasters told TheWrap, “They're merging because they're seeing some of their competitors in the pay TV arena that are getting a lot larger in terms of scale. Broadcasters, I think, believe that they have to have scale to compete against providers who are not giving away their programming for free.”

Thus, the most likely scenario is for Media General to retain the cash-rich WJAR-10 and keep Fox-64 and shed WPRI-12 to another broadcast company. 

WJAR is market leader
The impact to the news product and local elements like The Rhode Show could be devastating under a new ownership group. With the contracts of key news players like Tim White and Ted Nesi expiring during the next few months and a potential new owner, WPRI-12 could look a lot more like it did in the 1980’s than it did for the Providence-based LIN Media which invested heavily in WPRI-12 and made the station highly competitive and the flagship to the LIN Media group.

The Deal and Big Layoffs?

The deal is a big deal in the television world, as LIN’s shareholders will receive stock/cash worth $27.82 a share -- 29% premium closing price of Thursday.  Including debt of $968 million, the purchase would be valued at $2.6 billion, Media General and LIN said in a joint statement on the morning of March 21.

In April, Media General fired 45 employees at its headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. According to an email sent to employees by Media General’s Chief Operating Officer George Mahoney as reported by the Richmond Times Dispatch, “This change in Media General’s business model decentralizes decision-making and results in a leaner corporate structure…Indeed, many of those who are affected are stars and have been with us for many years.”

The Media General acquisition of LIN Media is just one of the latest big deals. Both 2013 and 2014 have seen a flurry of TV deals. “Local TV station sales exploded in 2013. Nearly 300 TV stations were sold, up 205% from 2012, according to BIA/Kelsey. Likewise, the total value of these transactions was up, a 367% increase in 2013 from 2012, reaching $8.8 billion,” report Pew Research in their State of the Media report for 2014.

 

Source: PEW Research and BIA/Kelsey

Rhode Island's Changing Media Landscape

Bob Kerr

The long time Providence Journal columnist Bob Kerr was sent packing by the new ownership group.

The unceremonious dismissal ended the tenure of the Projo's only true news columnist. 

Kerr was talented and often controversial. 

Howard Sutton

The long-time publisher was Belo's man in Providence. Howard Sutton was the man that implemented the changes that Dallas wanted to try and make the company more efficient and more profitable.

The results were dismal. Maybe no newspaper in the country lost a higher precentage of ad revenue than the Projo over the past decade.

He was the face of the paper in the community. 

Andrew Gobiel

Andrew Gobeil has been named campaign manager for Republican candidate for Attorney General Dawson Hodgson.
 
Gobeil began his media career covering politics as a teenager for a Cape Cod radio station. He has served as one of the youngest NPR affiliate news directors in the country, Washington editor and national correspondent for a television station group, and managing editor and host of a statewide public affairs program.  
 
Gobeil was the morning co-anchor at Providence’s ABC-TV affiliate and co-host of a morning news program on WPRO radio.  He is currently working on a non-fiction book about the journalism business. 

Rick Daniels

Rick Daniels has joined GoLocal24 as Chief Operating Officer.

Daniels is the former President of the Boston Globe. He also served as CEO of Gatehouse Media for New England and led a consortium of investors who attempted to purchase the Boston Globe from the New York Times Company in 2013.

Daniels then went on to play a key role at Empirical Media Advisors based in New York, focused mainly on Tribune Publishing, where Emprical’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Griffin, recently took the role of CEO.

Fred Campagna

Fred Campagna has joined FOX25 in Boston.

Before Campagna began working at FOX25, he served as the Chief On-Air Meteorologist at ABC6 for fourteen years.

After leaving ABC6 in July 2012, Campagna launched his own digital weather platform, Right Weather.


 

Karen Meyers

WLNE-TV has fired anchor Karen Meyers. She had been with the station since 2011.

Meyers had anchored the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news with John DeLuca. Sources say station management opted not to renew her contract and decided to go in another direction.

Before Meyers joined ABC6, she was a reporter/anchor with New England Cable News and was a reporter in Washington, DC.

Felice Freyer

According to RIPR reporter Ian Donnis, Providence Journal's Health Reporter is leaving.  Felice Freyer has been the sole reporter covering Rhode Island's largest businss sector.

Freyer leaves for the Boston Globe.

Her departure follows Phil Marcelo who recently left the Projo for AP in Boston.

Editor's note: An earlier version incorrectly had RIPR reporter Scott MacKay as breaking the story.

Flo Jonic

Veteran radio reporter Flo Jonic recently was fired by RINPR after she filed complaints against the station  for gender-based pay discrimination.

Jonic is a 30 year veteran of New England news radio.

In her charge filed in February, Jonic wrote, "I believe that I have been discriminated against based on my sex by my employer," and referred to the difference in her pay and that of RIPR reporter Ian Donnis.

"Currently, [reporter] Ian Donnis earns at least $75,000 a year, while I make $51,000 per year. We perform the same duties, and I have 32 more years experience than he does," wrote Jonic in her complaint.

Phil Marcelo

After a seven year stint reporting for the Providence Journal's state house bureau, Phil Marcelo left the paper to take a reporting gig with the Boston office of the Associated Press.

Hailing from Long Island, New York, Marcelo came to ProJo in 2006, and covered everything from regional news, to Providence City Hall and the Statehouse. Marcelo's departure was first reported by WRNI's Ian Donnis.

Julie Tremmel

Formerly a nightly news reporter for WJAR, Tremmel was fired from the "Team You Trust" after two clips, one of her performing on-air handstands, and the other offering tips on what to do during a bear attack, went viral.

The video became an internet sensation, but long-time Channel 10 newsman Jim Taricani called Tremmel’s antics “a smudge on our station's reputation.”

Jim Taricani

A long-time staple of Channel 10’s news team, Taricani announced plans to retire after over three decades with the station. 

Taricani has won 5 regional Emmy awards, an Edward R. Murrow award for investigative journalism and a Prestigious Yankee Quill Award from the New England Newspaper Association.

He was convicted to six months in prison in 2004 for refusing to reveal a source, and is the youngest person ever to be inducted into the Rhode Island Hall of Fame.

John DePetro

WPRO talk show host has come under fire for comments he made on air regarding women. Leading union organizations have called for DePetro to be fired. 

Most recently, he has been on announced suspension.

DePetro apologized for his comments.

Helen Glover

Former star of the reality show Survivor, turned talk radio show host is out. Helen Glover departs and is replaced by radio Veteran Ron St. Pierre, who only months earlier was let go by 630 WPRO. St. Pierre is a radio Hall-of-Famer and former top sports anchor on WPRI-12.

Mike Stanton

Mike Stanton, the remaining reporter from the Providence Journal's once storied investigative team, is leaving Fountain Street for a teaching job at the University of Connecticut.
 
Stanton, who was part of the team that won the Providence Journal's last Pulitzer and is the author of the "Prince of Providence," the Buddy Cianci expose, departs leaving the Projo without an investigative reporter. 

Dean Starkman

GoLocal named Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Dean Starkman as a contributor and editor-at-large.
 
"Dean Starkman has a tremendous track record in financial, media, and investigative reporting. His work at the Wall Street Journal as a reporter and as an editor and writer at Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), coupled with ground-breaking investigations of public corruption for The Providence Journal, is unsurpassed in the region," said Josh Fenton, Co-Founder and CEO at GoLocal24, the parent company to GoLocalWorcester.com.

Karen Bordeleau

Karen Bordeleau takes over for Tom Heslin as Executive Editor for the Providence Journal.
 
Before joining the newspaper in 1996, she worked at the Kent County Times and the Woonsocket Call. 
 
She is a graduate of Northeastern University and a Rhode Island native.

Bob Whitcomb

Bob Whitcomb has been the editor of the editorial page of the Providence Journal since 1992 and Vice President since 1997. 
 
His book, "Cape Wind" unveiled the business and political story behind Jim Gordon's effort to build a wind farm off of Cape Cod.
 
Prior to being a powerful voice at the Providence Journal, Whitcomb served as Financial Editor at International Herald Tribune.
 
He is slated to leave later this year according to RI NPR.

Tom Heslin

Managing Editor of the Providence Journal, Tom Heslin, is retiring. 
 
Heslin who has been a journalistic leader of the Journal since the 1990's, led the paper's team the one their last Pulitzer Prize in the early 1990's and had to implement a series of staff cuts during the past decade.
 
Widely respected by journalists, Heslin has recently suffered from health issues.

Tara Granahan

The former co-host to the morning drive show is now Buddy Cianci's sidekick and co-host on the 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm drive time show on WPRO AM.
 
Granahan has had a host of assignments at WPRO and is the only woman on air at WPROAM. 

Connie Grosch

She was the star photographer for the Providence Journal for better than a decade.
 
Her State House/Political photos made her one of the most influential members of the Providence Journal staff. 
 
In late 2012, the Providence Journal let her go as part of the latest cost cutting ordered by the home office in Dallas.
 
In January, she was named press secretary to U.S. Congressman David Cicilline (D-1). She just announced she was leaving the Congressman's staff to return to photography.

Gene Valicenti

The co-host of Channel 10's 6:00 pm news is now doing double as the host for WPRO's 6:00 am to 10:00 am morning show.
 
Previously, Valicenti lost his 11:00 pm slot on WJAR.

Jennifer Jordan

One of the top Providence Journal reporters is leaving not only Fountain Street, but also journalism. 
 
She was one of the guild members with the least longevity - more than 10 years.
 
She leaves for Boston-based Opportunity Nation - a not-for-profit.

Ron St. Pierre

The new guy at WHJJ - he takes over the morning show from the departed Helen Glover.
 
For decades, Ron St. Pierre has been a key player in the media industry in both local television and radio.
 
St. Pierre handled sports at WPRI TV, hosted morning drive at WPRO AM, and most recently, was Buddy Cianci's co-host in the afternoon.
 
(Photo: Alan Levine, Flickr)
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