Richmond Daily Surrenders to Paywall; 'All Access' Comes to Times-Dispatch Tuesday

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Online readers of the Richmond Times-Dispatch beginning tomorrow will have limited free viewing as the BH Media Group-owned daily launches All Access, Poynter.org reports.

As with many paywalls, online Times-Dispatch readers will be asked to subscribe once they exceed 20 free articles over a 30-day period, though obits, wire stories, videos, section lead pages and classified ads will not be counted against the 20 freebies, according to Poynter.org.

Publisher Tom Silvestri laid the groundwork for a price hike in 2014. Warren Buffett's BH Media Group acquired the Times-Dispatch from Media General last year (see "TUOL" post 5/17/12), and the billionaire is a big booster of paywalls (not giving stuff away is how he became a billionaire, after all).

Buffetting the Newspaper Industry

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Maybe Warren Buffett was given a DVD of Citizen Kane for Christmas. Whatever the reason, the billionaire's appetite for acquiring newspapers at a time when the industry is distressed continues to grow.

The Guardian (Guardian.co.uk) reported that Buffett's BH Media Group has purchased the Tulsa World, Oklahoma's second largest daily, along with the city's most popular Web site, Tulsaworld.com, for an undisclosed sum from the Lorton family, which has owned the paper since 1917.

 BH Media Group's newspaper-buying frenzy includes the media conglomerate's purchase of 63 newspapers from Media General last year (see "TUOL" post 5/17/12) and its purchase the previous year of the Omaha World Herald (see "TUOL" post 11/30/11), the company's largest daily. Only the group-owned World Herald and the Richmond Times-Dispatch are larger than the Tulsa World's 95,000 daily circulation.

According to the Guardian story, BH Media Group's buying spree now has it owning newspapers, magazines and online publications in nine states.

Buffetting the News

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)Richmond, Va.-based media conglomerate Media General, Inc. expects to close a deal on June 25 in which it will unload 63 newspapers to the BH Media Group, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., for a cool $142 million in cash.

In a company press release reported on Marketwatch.com, Media General said its dailies and weeklies in the southeastern U.S., except for its Florida holdings, along with Web sites and tablet and mobile apps, are part of the deal. The media outlets will be managed by World Media Enterprises, Inc., a sister company of the Omaha World Herald Co., which also is part of the BH Media Group newspaper stable.

Media General, which has concentrated on its digital and broadcast holdings in recent years, owns 18 network-affiliated television stations and their Web sites. A $400 million term loan and a $45 million revolving line of credit from Berkshire Hathaway to Media General was also finalized in a separate credit agreement, according to the press release.