Warren
Buffet’s purchase of 63 newspapers from Media General Company and news
Corp’s consideration of splitting the company in two, culminate a period
of intense
change in U.S. newspaper ownership, with new companies—including hedge
funds and private equity firms—taking over.
In 2011, a
total of 71 daily newspapers were sold as part of 11 different
transactions, the busiest year for sales since 2007, according to the
investment banking firm of Dirks, Van Essen & Murray.
The 2012
Who Owns the News Media
database, compiled by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in
Journalism, details these and other news industry ownership
changes in 2011 and the first half of 2012. In addition, PEJ provides a
summary of major changes.
The
newspapers were not the only media sector to undergo major changes. The
last 18 months also saw local television sales reach new heights, the
merging of Newsweek and the Daily Beast, Comcast’s acquisition
of NBC Universal, the Huffington Posts’ movement into web TV and
further reach among U.S. broadcast companies into the Hispanic market.
The 2012 interactive
database
contains financial statistics on 123 different companies that
own U.S. news media outlets, their other investment properties and how
they rank compared to other companies that own properties in that
sector. The database offers figures on more than
4,000 radio and TV stations, newspapers and news websites.
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