Scripps Sees Good Fit For Its New Stations

When McGraw-Hill put its TV station group on the block in June, it touched off a lot of speculation about who might buy the collection of nine stations — four full-power ABC affiliates in Denver, San Diego, Indianapolis and Bakersfield, Calif., and five low-power Azteca America affiliates in Denver, San Diego and Bakersfield.

That speculation ended abruptly last Monday evening when E.W. Scripps announced that it would pay $212 million for the group. The deal opened up four new markets for Scripps, extending its reach from 10% to 13% of all U.S. TV homes. It also makes Scripps the largest owner of ABC affiliates with 10.

As SVP of the Scripps' TV division, Brian Lawlor will bear much of the responsibility getting a good return on the investment. Here, in this interview with TVNewsCheck Editor Harry A. Jessell, Lawlor talks about why he believes that will be possible.

An edited transcript:

I'm going to start by giving you a minute to tell me what you like about this deal.

The thing that was most attractive to us was the culture and the fit of those television stations relative to whom we are. We know exactly the kind of company we are and the kind of stations we’re good at running. We like network affiliates. We like to run news organizations that are committed to making a difference in their communities. We kind of have a sweet spot in terms of market size. Anywhere from [DMA] 10 to [DMA] 60 feels really comfortable to us.

So that’s why these stations match up well. It’s four good markets, three of which are right in our sweet spot. Denver is market 17, Indy is 27, San Diego is 28. These are good legacy television stations with respected news brands and a culture of  providing good community service and great investigative reporting. Culturally, geographically, size-wise — it just was a really comfortable fit.

I thought [CEO Rich Boehne] was a little defensive on the conference call with security analysts after you announced the deal. He said at one point, "I am going to step back now and tell you why we’re investing in TV stations." Why does he have to explain why a TV company is investing in TV stations?

It’s a big change for our company. It’s been 20 years since we have done a big deal related to buying multiple television assets. It’s been 10 years since we picked up KMCI [Kansas City, Mo.], the independent. For a long time, this company was recognized as a newspaper company that also owned television stations. Then for a while we were probably a network cable company that also owned newspapers and televisions. I think that this probably sends the statement that for the first time television will be a big part of the future of this company. So he probably needed to define that for Wall Street.

Are you disappointed that the stock got no bounce from the deal?

No. We didn’t expect a bounce.

Why not?

The acquirer never gets a bounce initially. Quite frankly, if you can stay flat, that’s a win and that’s exactly where we are.

Have you visited all the stations?

No I haven’t, but by this time next week [this Friday] I will have.

So what’s the message for the 460 McGraw-Hill employees?

We can’t wait to meet them. We can’t wait to take advantage of their market knowledge and their passion for those communities. We look forward to integrating our culture with theirs. We think they’re really similar. We’re coming there to play. We are coming there to serve those communities, to do great story telling and to absolutely be competitive in those markets.

On the call, you said the fastest way to drive revenues was to improve ratings. The newscasts at the ABC affiliates are also-rans. Going from No. 3 to No. 1 is easier said than done. How do you go about doing that?

Yep. It is easier said than done and there are some really good television stations in those markets, but I think it comes with consistency. What we have been able to do with our stations has been to get more feet on the street and get deeper into our communities, to not only serve people over the air, but also through digital, through social, through mobile products. We realize that the game is changing and you have to engage an audience on those other platforms. They may not be rushing home to watch the 6 o’clock news every day, but a lot of the research tells us that by building a brand affinity on those other platforms, you’re bringing them back to television at certain points. That’s part of our commitment.

Then I think we have been very focused on quality journalism, making sure that our story telling and our story selection is representative of the community — not the easy stuff, just chasing fires and crime — but really trying to find those issues that are core, that are really going to get some discourse and that are going to be meaningful. So I think they can expect that we’re going to be really serious about good quality journalism that’s going to make a difference in their communities.