LIBERTY MEDIA BUYS BIG CHUNK OF CHARTER
Liberty Media is acquiring a 27 percent stake in Charter Communications, nation’s No. 4 cable TV operator, for $2.7B.
That investment position was owned by equity firms Apollo Management, Oaktree Capital Management and Crestview Partners.
Liberty chairman John Malone was attracted to Charter due to its market position, growth opportunities.
He believes its investment in a high-capacity digital network for on-demand TV and high-speed voice/data transmission will benefit customers and shareholders.
In February, Charter agreed to buy Cablevision’s western systems for $1.6B.
Liberty has agreed to limit its investment in Charter to 35 percent up until January 2016, and 40 percent beyond that.
The company is parent to Sirius XM satellite radio, Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball and has investment interests in Time Warner, Viacom, Live Nation and Barnes & Noble.
Malone had sold his controlling stake in cable operator Tele-Communications Inc. to AT&T in 1999 for $48B.
WAPO ERECTS PAY WALL
The Washington Post plans to erect a paywall on its digital site during the summer.
It will roll out a metered subscription system similar to that of the New York Times and Financial Times.
WaPo will allow free monthly access to 20 articles before charging for content. The free site currently attracts 20M visitors each month.
Katharine Weymouth, publisher of WaPo, believes readers will accept the company’s need to charge for content. “News consumers are savvy; they understand the high cost of a top-quality news gathering operation and the importance of maintaining the kind of in-depth reporting for which The Post is known,” said Weymouth in a statement. “Our digital package is a valuable one, and we are going to ask our readers to pay for it and help support our news gathering as they have done for many years with the print edition.”
The paper did not announce how much it will charge.
Daily circulation at the Post dipped 8.9 percent to 462,228 during the six-month period ended Sept. 30, 2012.
YAHOO’S FREY TO NBCNEWS.COM
Hillary Frey, who was editor-in-chief at Yahoo News, has been named editorial director of news for NBCNews.com, which is in the process of staffing up, according to executive editor Greg Gittrich.
Frey will direct the digital outfit’s national, international and investigative coverage.
She is a former managing editor of AdWeek, and reported on media/culture/society issues for Politico and New York Observer.
NBC completed the buyout of msnbc.com, which was renamed NBCNews.com, last summer.
Gittrich said the goal is to develop “new digital tools for narrative storytelling, investigative reporting and breaking news coverage.”
NYT’S STEVENSON MOVES TO EUROPE
Richard Stevenson, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times is moving the Europe editor position based in Paris later this year.
He will report to foreign editor John Kahn and assistant managing editor Larry Ingrassia.
Stevenson, who joined the paper in 1985, also covered the economy from Los Angeles and London.
The paper also named Alison Smale, who was executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, its Berlin bureau chief.
The IHT will be rebranded the International New York Times by the end of the year.
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