• by Wayne Friedman , December 3, 2008

Going against the recent media grain of breaking apart businesses, Cox Enterprises announced it is putting its newspapers, television and radio businesses under one roof.

Cox Newspapers, Cox Television and Cox Radio will now be under a new entity--Cox Media Group, effective January 2009. The unit will be based in Atlanta, just like its parent company. Veteran Cox executive Sandy Schwartz will be its president.

Cox says the three companies will look to benefit from cross-media and marketing research. One of those areas will come with digital platforms. "Another advantage to Cox Media Group is that we are bringing together our wide array of digital resources that ultimately will lead to enhanced online and mobile experiences for all our audiences," Schwartz said in a release.

Local media businesses--TV, radio and newspapers--have been under much pressure recently from a weakened local media advertising marketplace.

Cox Media group will include 17 daily and 26 non-daily newspapers, 15 television broadcast stations, and 86 radio stations, as well as scores of digital platforms associated with these business. It will also include direct-mail company Valpak. Cox still plans a sale of Valpak and newspaper assets in Texas, North Carolina and Colorado.

While Cox Media will be the new umbrella for these businesses, company officials maintain that the businesses will still be operated and managed locally. Cox Radio will also continue to trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CXR.

Many media companies have spun off businesses or broken up companies into separate pieces in recent years, such as Viacom/CBS, Belo Corp., and Time Warner/Time Warner Cable. Some business analysts now believe that some of these operations might be more effective as one company.