Quibi

Quibi, the short-form entertainment platform that was recently shuttered by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, will soon be available to stream for free on the ad-supported Roku Channel. The sale price for the more than 75 shows and documentaries produced for Quibi was less than $100 million, according to Deadline. The agreement requires that Roku present the programming in its original short form, rather than linking separate episodes together to create longer shows. The content will be exclusive to Roku for the time left in Quibi’s original two-year window with creators. After that, Roku will be able to stream the programming until 2027. While Quibi started out strong, raising $1.75 billion in funding, it sputtered out less than six months after its launch. The company has pledged to return $325 million to its early shareholders.

Travel

Meredith has sold Travel + Leisure to Wyndham Destinations, a company that manages 230 timeshare resorts, for $100 million. Wyndham has also agreed to buy $30 million worth of ads in Meredith publications over a five-year period. The company will rename itself as Travel + Leisure Co. and control the publication’s travel clubs, which have about 60,000 members who pay $100 to $300 a year. Production of the magazine, however, will remain under Meredith’s control. Under a 30-year renewable licensing agreement, Meredith will continue publishing Travel + Leisure, with its staff remaining Meredith employees. The publication was owned by Time Inc. before Meredith purchased the company in 2018. According to the Wall Street Journal, its circulation has held at 950,000 since the sale and Meredith said in August that it sold 735 pages of print advertising in the most recent fiscal year.

Tampa Bay Times

The Tampa Bay Times is closing and selling its printing plant in March. The closure will result in pink slips going to 150 employees, 90 of whom are full-timers. The paper’s remaining full-time staff will have their salaries cut by 10 percent for the next six months. In April, the Times, which was printed daily up until that time, cut five days a week from its schedule, only printing a paper on Wednesday and Sunday. Those papers will now be printed at Gannet’s Lakeland Ledger facility. Proceeds from the sale and some of the savings from the pay cuts will be used to pay down debt and possibly fund pensions, said Times president Conan Gallaty's decision to sell the printing facility follows similar moves at other papers. In November, the Kansas City Star sold its press, and other papers who have outsourced their printing include the Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and Hartford Courant.