Cox Media Group’s prospective owner Apollo Global Management has announced plans to publish the Dayton Daily News, the Springfield News-Sun and the Journal-News publications just three days a week.
The announcement follows a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission last week approving the sale of Cox to the private equity firm Apollo and holding company Terrier Media.
The $3.1 billion sale could have big implications for Cox Media’s 14 national television stations and its Ohio radio stations and newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News.
An FCC rule prevents the same owner from having a TV station and daily newspaper in the same market. Cox Media had previously been exempt from that rule because the paper was established before the rule was enacted.
The FCC acted to eliminate the rule in 2017 but was stopped by a federal judge in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Cox sale, which is expected to be completed by year’s end, has received pushback from some lawmakers, advocates and media analysts who worry about the disappearance of newspapers and other local sources around the country.
A recent report from the nonpartisan research group Policy Matters Ohio finds Ohio has lost one-third of its newspapers in the last 15 years.
