BYE, BYE TO THE NEW YORK TIMES BROADCASTING GROUP

Picture: The large-disc receiver and controls of the television used in the first American demonstration of television, April 7, 1927.

Today all The New York Times Company staff got this message:

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past year, we have rethought the strategy for our Company.

This has required making some very hard choices about what kind of company we
are going to be five years down the road.

Regrettably, in an era of scarcer resources, we concluded that we cannot be all things to all people, and today we are announcing that we plan to sell our Broadcast Media Group, which includes nine network-affiliated television stations and their
related properties.

The proposed sale would enable us to place an even greater emphasis on
developing and integrating our print and rapidly growing digital resources.

This makes the most sense for our Company and it will enable us to make the
best use of our considerable journalistic and financial strengths.

The stations that comprise the Broadcast Media Group are:

WHO-TV in Des Moines, Iowa (NBC);
KFSM-TV in Ft. Smith, Ark. (CBS);
WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Ala. (CBS);
WREG-TV in Memphis, Tenn. (CBS);
WQAD-TV in Moline, Ill. (ABC);
WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va. (CBS);
KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla. (NBC);
KAUT-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla. (MyNetworkTV); and
WNEP-TV in Scranton, Penn. (ABC).

We will greatly miss our Broadcast colleagues.

They are our good friends and, over the years, they have made many substantial contributions to our Company, and wholeheartedly embraced our Core Purpose and Values.

Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson.

Well, TV is having and will have bigger problems than newspapers.

You can be (you must) very active in video but you do not need to own and to manage any TV stations.

Content not conducts is our business.

Internet has become a multimedia platform for any media language, and what you need is just an "information engine."

And newspapers are, newsrooms are, journalists are, the core of the new media business.

Today´s news from the President and the CEO of the NYT Company are, indeed, good news.

UPDATE from The New York Times piece in today´s paper:

Analysts said the proposed sale seemed to be a positive move for the company.

Edward Atorino, a media analyst at the Benchmark Company, a financial research company, said it made strategic sense because the broadcast unit was not big enough to affect the company’s performance in the long term.

“It’s a business that hasn’t moved the needle much at The New York Times,’’ he said. “They’re clearly interested in expanding their Internet-related businesses, related to their core business — which is the paper — and this will give them the capital to reinvest in those areas.’’

He said the company’s purchases of the Web site About.com and Baseline StudioSystems, an entertainment information service, “show the direction they’re headed.”

Others said the proposed sale suggested a concern about the future profitability of local stations during a tumultuous time for media companies, as the Internet siphons consumers and advertisers from both print and television.

“It is a very interesting sign that shows that broadcast owners are worried about the long-term health of the station business and also that a vibrant private equity market may be willing to take a gamble on these assets,’’ said Michael B. Nathanson, a media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “Most public-market investors are worried about the fundamentals within local TV markets and would probably be happy if broadcast stations were sold.’’