Business
Rieder: Can Papers Make it on Their Own?
This July 14, 2010, file photo, shows Gannett headquarters in McLean, Va. Gannett is spinning off its publishing business from its broadcasting and digital operations. The company is also acquiring full ownership of Cars.com for $1.8 billion., the company announced Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
(USA Today) – Kicked to the curb.
One by one, big media companies are splitting themselves in two, holding on to their sexier, more lucrative properties — broadcast, film, digital — and casting off their print operations to sink or swim.
The trend reached a crescendo in the past week. First, E.W. Scripps and Journal Communications entered into a deal in which Scripps will own both companies’ broadcast properties, and a new entity, Journal Media Group, will own the newspapers. On Monday, Tribune Co. completed the spinoff of its newspapers into a separate, stand-alone company. And on Tuesday, Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper company, and owner of USA TODAY, announced a similar plan.
The flurry of activity came after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Time Warner moved their newspapers and magazines respectively into separate operations.
