Media General Buys Meredith

Media General is about to be become the 4th largest television group, and they're spending $2.4 billion, to do it. Details of the announcement are just coming out this AM, but the new group will cover about 30% of the country. The deal is expected to become "official", by mid 2016.

Current Meredith CEO Steve Lacey, will be kept (for now) as President/CEO of the new "Meredith Media General" company. No word yet on who's actually going to run the TV stations day-to-day, or the publishing division. The new board of directors will include 8 from Media General and 4 from Meredith.

There will be some problems in 6 markets where Meredith and Media General both own stations: Portland, Nashville, Hartford, Greenville-Spartanburg, Mobile, and Springfield, MA.

Not since the Belo/Gannett merger has there been a 'big one' like this. And now comes the speculation of who's 'in' and who's 'out'? I'd hate to be the Meredith GM or ND in some key markets like Hartford, Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa. Lots of resumes are being dusted off, you can be sure.