Cox Media Group has made a deal to have its stations in Orlando and Jacksonville contribute content and coverage to E.W. Scripps Co.'s Florida 24 news network.
Scripps launched FL24, a statewide over-the-top and over-the-air news network, in June 2021. Scripps owns stations in the Miami, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee and Fort Myers markets, covering most of the state.
Scripps was seeking another group to help it cover the remaining Florida markets. After fruitlessly negotiating with another group, it started talking to CMG and reached an agreement fairly quickly.
“We were seeking a strategic partner to provide that content. We wanted to make sure that they have the same journalistic beliefs that we have and we believe we found that in Cox,” Joe Naylor, VP of emerging products at Scripps told Broadcasting+Cable. Naylor was with GMG before joining Scripps.
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”Scripps is very like-minded to Cox,” added Marian Pittman, executive VP, content, product & innovation at Cox Media Group. “Our companies have very similar values and believe in the power of local journalism and this just gives us another platform to do that.”
The arrangement is brand new, but Naylor said he hopes to get it up and running in the first quarter. Scripps will continue to own FL24. The companies will have a revenue-sharing arrangement, but Naylor declined to provide details. He said he didn’t expect to need to ask any other stations to join the network.
With the Cox stations aboard, Naylor expects FL24 to start to ramp up the amount of coverage it delivers.
“We will be getting things off the ground in Q1 and start to collaborate with them and exchange and share content and create a robust offering for all Florida consumers and audiences,” Naylor said. The network already features Forrest Saunders, a Scripps reporter in Tallahassee, the state capital.
Pittman also expects the network to mature. “I didn't sign up for the network in its current condition. I signed up for the potential of it,” Pittman said. “They have a great vision and we buy into that vision.”
Naylor sees the Cox stations providing news daily from their markets. The network will also be programming investigative and positive stories from around the state.
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“We’ll provide local content from Jacksonville and Orlando,” Pittman said. “It helps fill a gap for Scripps, but it also helps our viewers in our markets get a better idea of what’s going on around the state that they love.”
Pittman said the Cox stations will also share their Central Florida Spotlight segments, community programs and public service outreach, in addition to local news investigations and weather forecasts.
“We’ll give them things we know our audiences around the state of Florida consider reasons to watch,” she said.
Pittman said that at this point, it wasn’t clear if the Cox stations would be running content created by the Scripps stations in Florida markets, but she hoped that as the companies built their collaboration, that would happen.
“The collaboration is the secret to the success,” she said. “We both have open minds and are excited about the possibilities.”
With the entire state covered, Scripps plans to ramp up its promotion of the FL24 network. “We have been looking forward to this partnership with Cox so that we can really double down on promotion, which will include OTT marketing as well as traditional marketing,” Naylor said.
The Cox stations will contribute to the promotion. “We have powerful brands in our markets across the state and we will leverage those brands and inform our viewers where to find this,” Pittman said.
Naylor declined to say how many people watch FL24 or how many people have downloaded the network’s app.
“We’ve been pleased with the results that we’ve seen so far and look forward to compounding that growth,” he said.
Naylor has been running FL24, but he said he was planning to name a general manager to oversee the operation. The GM would report to Naylor. For now, its operations are based in Scripps’s station in Tampa, WFTS, “but that’s sort of fluid as we grow this thing.” he said. “Just to be clear, it will be based at a Scripps property in Florida.” ■
