Scripps and their spinoff

Today's breakup into two companies by Scripps is pretty telling of Wall St.'s opinions of local media. The logic was that local properties are very different than national ones. E.W. Scripps (SSP) became local media only, but kept the original name. The new, nationally focused company became Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI). SNI was given the cable networks and the "pure-play" interacive properties.

Before the split, SSP was trading around 41.50,

With a few minutes left in the day SSP = 3, and SNI = 40 - Analysts had the estimated 8 for SSP, and 40 for SNI.

Some 90% of the value of the stock was with the national properties, not the local ones.

The revenue split is about 60% SNI, 40% SSP (as split).

Local looks more and more like dead money to traders. Another data point is the split for Belo/AH Belo (BLC, AHC) - for which both have been trading drastically to the downside since the split.