Market Forces Threaten Future Of Cox Reps
With growing station group M&A and more in-house repping, industry observers say Cox Media Group may have to decide whether to sell the rep division or shutter it. However, Cox’s automated sales platform Videa remains a key asset.
What’s going to happen to Cox Reps? That’s a question many broadcasters are asking as parent Cox Media Group considers bids for the sale of its stations, a bedrock of the Cox Reps’ business.
The question arises because of the possible loss of the Cox stations as clients and the actual recent loss of Raycom Media. Its new owner, Gray Television, handles all its national sales in-house.
And there’s the possibility of another blow. “The biggest elephant in the room is the fate of the Tribune stations,” said one executive, who like many people contacted for this story requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic. Cox represents all of Tribune’s 42 owned-and-operated stations.
“Tribune is now being bought by Nexstar,” the source said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of time left on the contract for the Tribune stations. That would make it easy for Katz [Media Group], which represents a lot of Nexstar, to take the Tribune business in-house at Katz.”
Another source, who formerly headed sales for a TV station group, said that in light of everything, Cox Reps is “going to be really, really challenged.
“There are less and less station groups to go after. So, at some point, the owners of Cox are going to have to say, ‘We’re going to sell this off’ — and they may or may not be able to — or they’ll say, ‘We’ll shutter it.’ ”
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