|
of just over
$1.2 billion in pro forma revenue and just under $0.5 billion in pro forma
EBITDA if you look at the kind of the odd/even year, political/nonpolitical
anomalies of 2012/2013. And we cover now about 23% of audience, of the US
audience. So I think, yes, I think that's a good size. Clearly, compared to
the fully diversified media companies out there, we still are not a large
player, a huge player, but we think in our particular niche of local
broadcast and digital, we are a very good sized player, and I think we
certainly have the ability at 23% within the existing rules to hopefully, as
you look out into the future, do even more and continue to really kind of
advance our platform even further. Finally, the network affiliation diversity
is really, really a wonderful thing. We really enjoy and respect our network
partners' programming capabilities. The reality is for anybody that's been in
this business a long time, programming is an incredibly difficult thing to
do, and there just always seems to be momentum shifts that kind of move
around every three, four, five plus years, and really difficult to predict
those momentum shifts. And so, I think one of the better opportunities, one
of the better business strategies for that is to have a really diversified
portfolio. And when you take a look at really the strength that Media General
has, in particular in areas where LIN is a little bit weaker in terms of
diversification, the chart all the way on over to the right I think shows a
really wonderful group of network affiliation diversity. And moving along to
slide number eight, again I think this is really highlighting the size and
scale. Again, size and scale is not everything, but I think it's a good
thing. And you take a look at the CBS affiliated group size, for example,
we'd be, we estimate, the number two largest CBS affiliate in terms of
revenue. In terms of share, number one or two stations, an awfully nice group
of television stations with just under 40 television stations that are
currently ranked number one or number two. And when you take a look at --
just another way to kind of look at the big four affiliate stations in the
top 75 DMAs, which has really been kind of a market niche of ours, really
kind of market number 20 to 75 is the majority of LIN stations, and that fits
-- again, the overlap fits very, very well with the Media General properties.
The way you operate kind of top 10 market stations versus the way you operate
kind of markets 100 and below are completely different from the way the
operations really have historically worked well for, I think, both groups in
kind of this midmarket range, and so another I think really important
highlight is the complementary market size, as well. And really, just kind of
the final point on this is we emphasize size and scale, which is definitely
important, but I think it's really important to also not lose sight of the
quality of these properties. Both groups have a long, long history of
community service. Both organizations have a strong, strong history of really
caring about their communities, a lot of localism element introduced through
a lot of hours of local productions, be it news, public affairs, lifestyle
programs. And again, the culture of delivering something that we believe is
very, very important service for our communities is something that we believe
is completely complementary and really gets us very, very excited about this
combination, in particular. Last slide for me will just be to talk for a
minute about the digital media platform. I mentioned it a little bit earlier.
Really, our goal all along on the LIN Digital side has been to work very,
very hard over the years to try to identify products and services on the
digital marketing side that would be complementary to our existing business.
And the combination with Media General, I think, is just absolutely terrific
from the digital perspective. We've kind of found our niche in the digital
side in the areas, when you just look at it from 50,000 feet, in the areas of
video and the areas of premium. So digital means 1 million different things to
1 million different people. For us, it's really been where our roots and our
heritage has been, in high-quality video production, professionally produced,
great storytelling, incredibly relevant, and viewed by and consumed by an
awful lot of people. So we kind of set out initially to move that all that
great TV video to mobile platforms and the websites. Media General has done
something very similar with its very high-quality properties as well, and
then the opportunity for us, who I think on the LIN Digital side we've
differentiated ourselves from others in the industry by accumulating just
incredibly bright companies and incredibly brilliant people that are really
focused on the marketing services side, be it in mobile, be it in social
media, be it in performance marketing, and now most recently with the
Federated Media acquisition, that gets us into a national scale and scope of
content marketing on the native side. To be able to 6 THOMSON REUTERS
STREETEVENTS | www.streetevents.com | Contact Us ©2014 Thomson Reuters. All
rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content,
including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior
written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters
logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated
companies. MARCH 21, 2014 / 2:00PM, LIN - Media General and LIN Media
Announce a Definitive Merger Agreement
|