Here are a couple of Arizona media stories that flew under the radar this week. Chew them over and e-mail me if there was anything I missed.
- Fourth-quarter earnings for Gannett Company, which owns the Arizona Republic and 12 News in Phoenix, were down some 36 percent from the previous year, reports the Phoenix Business Journal. A statement from the company said this was in spite of “substantially higher” revenues from political ads on TV. The same statement said earnings would have been better if it weren’t for all those pesky severance packages the company gives out when it lays off people en masse.
- Speaking of political ads, a former advertising executive at KGUN-TV (Channel 9) in Tucson is suing the station, claiming it broke federal broadcast rules by making political candidates pay higher rates than other advertisers. This is according to Inside Tucson Business, which said the TV station and its parent company, the Journal Broadcast Group, had not responded to the suit.