According to a report from Steve Jordan, BH Media Group, owned by Warren Buffett, has purchased the Greensboro News & Record from a company called Landmark Media Enterprises.
BH Media Group is a division of Berkshire Hathaway, and they recently purchased this newspaper from Landmark Media Enterprises for an undisclosed amount. Landmark is based in Norfork, Virginia. Warren Buffett has mentioned that he’s looking to acquire more midsized newspapers that have strong ties to their community.
We also learned that neither party disclosed the terms of the sale.
Employees of the News & Record did not learn about the sale until they were in a meeting this morning, the paper tells us.
This Greensboro-based newspaper has an average circulation on Sunday of 81,600 subscribers as of September of 2012. This figure is down 6% from the prior year. We learn this information from the Alliance for Audited Media. Their average Monday through Friday subscribership is down about 5% since September of 2011, and currently reaches 54,789 customers.
Warren Buffett tells us that he believes “newspapers that intensively cover their communities will have a good future.” Last May, Berkshire Hathaway purchased the majority of Media General’s newspapers. Buffett also says he’s considering buying more newspapers. One area of interest is the Allentown Pennsylvania Morning Call.
Last December, World Media, a division of Berkshire Hathaway, was forced to close the News & Messenger of Manassas, Virginia. It closed partly because of the competition of other publications and only reached a small piece of a much larger Metropolitan area.