Belo Corporation Removes Newspaper Business
Belo Corporation, which began as a Texas newspaper, began trading today, but only after splitting off its newspaper business to run as its own separate entity.
At the point of the split, Belo collectively owned 21 TV stations across the US, as well as four daily newspapers. With the split of properties, the four newspapers (The Dallas Morning News, Providence Journal, The Press Enterprise, and Denton Record Chronicle) now form a separate public company called A.H. Belo, that also started trading on the NYSE this morning. The split of operations seemed to be inevitable when recalling previous press releases from Belo, which spoke to declining circulation for the newspapers. Belo circulation at one point had to be investigated for rumors of overstating circulation numbers in 2004. Overall, the newspaper group of Belo consistently seemed to be the corporation’s ‘Achilles heel’.
The new Belo (TV broadcast business) is estimated to produce $775 million in annual revenue this year and there is no doubt that they will meet expectations because for the first time, its leaders will be able to focus on one core strength – broadcasting. The same could be said about the folks now in charge of A.H. Belo. Without having to compete with their television kin, perhaps they too can start to work on new media tactics that will improve the old ones employed at their newspaper properties.
