by James A. Bacon
Bearing Drift Media has announced a merger with Virginia Line Media LLC to provide conservative content to Virginians across multiple channels, including the Internet, print, radio and social networks. The combination represents the first instance I can recall of Virginia bloggers making a serious bid to bootstrap their way into mainstream media.
Bearing Drift produces the Bearing Drift blog, the most highly trafficked right-leaning blog in the Virginia blogosphere, as well as a monthly magazine. Virginia Line Media owns The Score Radio Network, a conservative radio interview show broadcast on stations in Richmond, Williamsburg and Lynchburg as well as three online radio networks.
“This is yet another step forward for Virginians who are looking for a substantial, statewide conservative alternative for their news and information – how they want it and when they want it,” said Jim Hoeft, Bearing Drift’s founder and new president of Virginia Line Media in a prepared statement. “By combining with Virginia Line, conservatives now have a clear alternative to hear, read, and instantaneously share the political information that is most important to them – information that affects their family and livelihood.”
“To partner with Bearing Drift means we instantly gain access to a well-established online conservative voice – and we provide a well-established radio voice to amplify the message,” said Norman Leahy, founder of Virginia Line, and a contributor to Bacon’s Rebellion. “Our combined efforts will give conservatives an outlet for their concerns, and will provide feedback to legislators and pundits about what a substantial part of the electorate believes is the right direction for the commonwealth – without censorship or condescension.”
Although I am a periodic guest on The Score, I don’t speak with any inside knowledge. However, I would expect that the most obvious “economy of scale” in the merger will be the ability to better support an advertising staff. I suspect that it would be difficult for either group to generate enough sales to support a full-time sales staff on their own. But the two combined could well pull it off.
A sure sign that Bearing Drift Media has broken out of pigeonholing as a niche political publication is if it can start generating more than Republican-campaign and conservative-advocacy ads. Given the polarized nature of media today and its line-up of some of the top Republican/conservative writing and radio talent in Virginia, Bearing Drift has a very good shot at building a significant audience. The big question is whether it can pull in enough advertising to build a profitable and enduring enterprise.
Is Bearing Drift Media the future of Virginia media in a digital world? We’ll have a clue if Blue Virginia or Not Larry Sabato start orchestrating mergers with other blue-state blogs. Stay tuned…
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