KXAN Owner Steps Up
When LIN TV (TVL), owners or operators of KXAN TV (NBC), KNVA (CW), and KBVO, claims to be a forward-thinking, multi-platform business, they mean it. Today (October, 6, 2009), LIN announced acquisition of Red McCombs Media based here in Austin. The LIN corporate offices are in Providence, Rhode Island. Red McCombs Media is an online advertising and media services company.
Yeah, you’ve heard of Red McCombs. Red McCombs media is a brain child of THAT Red McCombs—The one with the automobile dealerships, the one how was a cofounder of the radio, TV, and billboard giant Clear Channel Communications, the one with his name etched on the school of business at The University of Texas at Austin. That’s just some of what’s he’s done with his good and great fortune. Did you ever wonder what McCombs real name is? Billy Joe “Red” McCombs. Anyway, check out the Red McCombs Media web site www.redmccombsmedia.com for much more information.
According to the LIN TV release, “the acquisition significantly expands LIN TV’s local multi-platform offerings by providing national advertising and enhanced services, including targeted display, rich media, video advertising, custom-built vertical channels, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, and mobile marketing.”
Al this means that LIN just got a lot bigger. “RM [Red McCombs] Media advances LIN’s transformation from a local broadcaster to a digital media company with a national footprint,” said Vincent Sandusky, LIN TV president and chief executive officer.
Austinite and Internet entrepreneur John Flatt founded RM Media in 2004 with Red McCombs in 2005. RM Media connects targeted audiences with advertisers and publishers based on demographic, psychographic, and consumer behaviors. “As part of LIN TV’s digital media strategy, we will be able to benefit from important synergies and have greater resources for growth, enhanced service, and innovation,” Flatt said. According to Forbes Magazine (August 12, 2009), RM Media is one of the nation’s fasting growing companies in the nation with a growth rate over the past three years of 230.6%.
The last paragraph of the LIN TV release posted on the LIN website is perhaps the most important and telling. “LIN TV’s acquisition of RM Media will further diversify and augment the Company’s digital marketing and sales business, as well as providing new opportunities for growth. [Here it is:] By integrating RM Media’s in-depth online media properties with sophisticated technology, LIN TV will be well positioned to deliver and monetize [my emphasis] a vast array of multimedia product offerings.
I keep writing about how local TV stations all of the way up to the networks are searching for new streams of revenue. The LIN TV acquisition of Red McCombs Media has the potential of doing just that only LIN is taking serious leaps on to multi-platforms instead of constantly catering to the insatiable appetite of the television beast. There may come a time when LIN TV will become LIN tv or just LIN.
LIN TV should benefit in another way from its acquisition of Red McCombs Media. RM Media has a really cool web site. LIN should use talented folks at RM Media to fix the LIN TV site, www.lintv.com. It’s pretty, er, lame in comparison.
© Jim McNabb, 2009
[My thanks to “Anonymous” whose comment to www.newsmcnabb.blogspot.com turned me on the news release on the LIN TV web site.]