Dive Brief:
- Tribune Media, owner of the WGN America cable network and 42 local TV stations, is facing financial pressure, with its stock price down almost 50% over the last year.
- Ad Age reported that the media company is exploring “strategic and financial alternatives” to better reflect its value, including selling or separating assets, or looking for new partnerships and programming alliances.
- The review is being conducted along with Moelis & Co. and Guggenheim Securities.
Dive Insight:
"We believe that the value of the portfolio of businesses of Tribune Media is not fully reflected in the stock price and intend to explore ways to unlock value by reviewing strategic alternatives," Tribune Chairman Bruce Karsh said in a statement.
In an analyst call, Tribune Media CEO Peter Liguori didn’t lay out a plan for the company’s options, but did not rule out selling WGN America.
In December the company invested $25 million in Dose Media with eye toward using Dose’s technology to uncover potential viral stories covered by Tribune’s local broadcast news. According to Dose, Tribune’s investment was going to be used to bolster its engineering team to offer publishers better user targeting options.
Tribune Media spun off its publishing unit, which owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, in 2014.