/Photo: Jeff Swensen for The Washington Post via Getty Images
By Sara Fischer | Axios
Berkshire Hathaway, the corporate holding company owned mostly by billionaire Warren Buffett, will sell its newspaper operations to publisher Lee Enterprises Inc. for $140 million, per a Wednesday announcement.
Why it matters: Buffett loves the newspaper business. His first job was a newspaper delivery boy for the Washington Post — and he has long been a vocal supporter of local news. The fact that he is finally giving up on the industry, which he has warned in recent years is “toast” due to terminal advertising decline, is significant and symbolic.
The deal will expand Lee’s newspaper audience by about 50% percent and add titles to its portfolio in new parts of the country.
The big picture: The newspaper business has been in serious decline over the past two decades, coinciding with the rise of the internet. The internet has taken up much of the advertising market share that used to be owned primarily by print newspapers.
Go deeper:
Cities are turning into news deserts
50% of newspapers in the U.S. could be gone by 2021
The publishing conglomerate will acquire BH Media Group (BHMG) and the Buffalo News. BHMG owns 30 daily newspapers and more than 100 weekly publications in the Midwest and Southeast.
Included in the deal is the Omaha World-Herald, Buffett’s hometown paper, as well as North Carolina’s Winston-Salem Journal and Texas’ Waco Tribune-Herald.
