Gannett may get a retransmission consent and cost-savings boost...

Gannett may get a retransmission consent and cost-savings boost from buying Belo Corp. after the Department of Justice OK'd it with a divestiture (CD Dec 17 p6), a stock analyst wrote to investors Wednesday. The acquirer “could see modest multiple expansion, benefiting from ramping retrans and increased synergies along with strong political inflows helping boost total cash flow and offsetting ongoing weakness in print,” said Ed Atorino of Benchmark. He said Belo means “higher margin revenue streams” for Gannett, which also owns daily newspapers including USA Today.