The Publishing Division operates 21 daily newspapers plus nearly 100 weeklies and other periodicals in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina. The Division also has equity interests in The Denver Post and AdOne, a national network of classified advertising on the Internet.

H. Graham Woodlief, Jr.
President
Publishing Division

Q: The Publishing Division had another record year in 1999. What makes Media General’s newspapers so successful?

A: Actually, we have generated several years of solid growth in both profit and operating margins. Lower newsprint prices certainly helped last year, and we have done a good job of acquiring newspapers and integrating them into the Publishing Division during the past four years. The vibrant Southeast — our chosen market — continues to grow, but our people are our greatest strength. They strive to do their best at every task, every day. During 1999, our newspapers won numerous awards from press associations in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida — every state where we have a major publishing presence.

Q: How do you plan to maintain the Division’s earnings momentum?

A: We have identified eight strategic issues that we will address this year. At the top of the list are our efforts to recruit, train and retain talented people. By doing so, we will be able to make progress on the other seven key goals: earnings growth, revenue growth, circulation growth, customer satisfaction, commitment to excellence, continuous improvement, and synergy and convergence.

Q: What progress are you making on media convergence?

A: Our most ambitious project is in Tampa, where The Tampa Tribune is sharing a News Center with WFLA-TV and Tampa Bay Online (TBO.com). Beginning this year, reporters and editors from each of these media are collaborating on stories that lend themselves to multimedia coverage. In addition to this unique experiment, virtually all of our daily newspapers maintain Web sites, and our New Media Group is working with these properties to create a significant Internet presence in the Southeast.

Q: Will this media convergence produce the synergy that you mentioned?

A: Yes, but there are many other ways to create synergy. Our Media General News Bank is a prime example. Since October 1998, this internal online network has encouraged our newspapers to share their best stories, photos and graphics with each other. And beginning this year, Media General will market selected content from this news service to other publishing companies.

Q: Are your synergy efforts limited to leveraging the value of your content?

A: Not at all. We are combining our printing operations wherever it makes economic sense to do so. And we are implementing a new circulation information system that will help our newspapers improve customer service for existing subscribers and facilitate target marketing designed to attract new readers. This system will upgrade all of our newspapers to cutting-edge circulation software by the end of next year.

Q: What’s new on the advertising sales side?

A: Here, too, we are developing intranet-based sales-support tools. We want to improve the flow of information across the Division, including ideas for market research and advertising innovation. If an account executive comes up with a great idea that works in Winston-Salem, maybe we should try it in Tampa. And if it works there, maybe we can adopt it in Richmond, Lynchburg and other locations.

Q: What other improvements are in the works?

A: We continue to invest in buildings and equipment. We recently completed a downtown office building for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. We also plan to renovate the newsroom of the Winston-Salem Journal. Like many publishing companies around the country, we are decreasing the width of some of our newspapers. In addition to reducing newsprint consumption, this initiative will create products that are more reader friendly.

Q: Will all of these improvements lead to yet another record year?

A: That’s always the goal. We can’t control all of the variables that influence our bottom line, but we are very focused on the factors that we do control, and that gets back to our strategic-planning process. Last year all of our operating units started using the Balanced Scorecard, a system for setting and achieving specific goals. Our people are committed to continuously improving upon what they’ve accomplished in the past, and the Balanced Scorecard gives them a way to measure those results. Their efforts will continue to increase our profitability, which allows us to reward employees, reinvest in the Company and build value for shareholders.