Media General sells last newspaper

Media General has completed its divestment of its newspaper chain with the sale of the Tampa Tribune to Revolution Capital Group for $9.5 million.  Media General will not focus on its digital and broadcast properties. The first step in ridding itself of the print division caused a stir with the sale of most of its newspapers to Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway last May (see this post).
  Media General looks to get a short-term boost this year, with it's TV stations in key battleground states of Ohio, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.  Other stations are in markets with tight Senate races.

"Our Virginia, Rhode Island and Ohio stations are also benefiting from hotly contested Senate races," Media General Chief Executive Marshall Morton said in a statement.

In the latest quarterly report, the company upped its estimate of revenues from political advertising to around $58 million (up from earlier estimates of $50M.    Despite the optimism, Media General reported that corporate staffing has been slashed in half in the last four months, and its share price dropped 4% after the news on the sale of the Tampa Tribune broke.

Source -  Media General sells last newspaper; sees  strong election ads on TV,  Reuters