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2012 YEAR in Review: Media

Rogers: expanded viewership focus

Person to Watch: MEL ROGERS

The Business Journal added PBS SoCal Chief Executive Mel Rogers to our watch list amid changes last year that included a name change from KOCE-TV to PBS SoCal.

Rogers faced the challenge of retaining PBS SoCal’s Orange County audience while expanding the station’s focus to account for viewership now stretching as far as Santa Barbara to the north and San Ber-nardino to the east.

In January, the station renamed Business Journal Executive Editor Rick Reiff’s Inside OC show to SoCal Insider. Station plans also called for satellite offices to be established in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs, but offices beyond an existing Costa Mesa headquarters have yet to open.

—Heidi Kulicke

Company to Watch: FREEDOM COMMUNICATIONS INC.

We placed Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc. on our watch list last year following news the company had struck a deal to sell its eight TV stations to Hunt Valley, Md.-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. for $385 million last November.

Freedom proceeded to sell off its newspapers in Texas, Florida, North Carolina and other states earlier this year.

Freedom placed itself on the sales block in late 2010 and said it would consider offers to buy all or parts of the company—still recovering from bankruptcy during 2009 and 2010.

Then came the biggie: Freedom struck a deal to sell the Register and the rest of Freedom’s assets to Boston-based 2100 Trust LLC. Terms of the June deal weren’t disclosed, but the Business Journal estimated the transaction was worth $200 million.

Prior to the deal, potential buyers of Freedom were thought to include Denver-based Media- News Group Inc. and San Diego developer and U-T San Diego owner Doug Manchester. Once the Register was sold, Aaron Kushner—chief executive of 2100 Trust and Freedom, as well as the Register’s publisher—announced plans to boost newsroom staff and rejigger elements of the newspaper, including the Opinion and Business pages.

—Heidi Kulicke

5 Big Media Stories

• Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc., parent company of the Orange County Register, sells to Boston-based 2100 Trust LLC.

• Costa Mesa-based OC Weekly and 12 other alternative weekly newspapers are sold in a management buyout of parent company’s Village Voice Media Holdings LLC assets.

• Irvine-based fast-food chain Taco Bell Corp. puts the media-planning portion of its advertising account up for review.

• Irvine-based Specific Media, owner of social media site Myspace, announces it plans to raise $50 million to compete with Spotify and Pandora in digital music.

• Road & Track magazine closes its longtime office in Newport Beach and relocates to Ann Arbor, Mich., to join other Hearst-owned magazines after being acquired by Hearst last year.

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