U.S. newspaper and television company Media General on Monday announced the restructuring of the firm to five geographic regions, replacing its current traditional structure that groups media by division - publishing, broadcast and interactive, Mediaweek reported. The restructure will go into effect in early July.

The five regions are Virginia and Tennessee, Florida, mid-South, North Carolina and Ohio and Rhode Island. The restructuring also includes a sixth business segment, which will hold interactive advertising services, and include the Blockdot, DealTake and NetInformer Web sites.

"The consumer in the marketplace is typically indifferent as to how he gets his information ... if he has a preference, we want to be able to serve the preference, so in each of our markets we want to be able to offer every technology that's available to the customer," said Marshall Morton, president and CEO, in a video on the company's Web site. "We found that the approach that we're using today, the three divisions ... never fully takes advantage of the fact that we've got three product strengths."

In Florida, which Media General has run as one market over the past several years, the company has been able to get closer to the customer, and "we've decided to recognise that fact as a competitive plus," he said. "By shifting to the approach that runs on the market basis, gives us the opportunity to plow through those division walls, get people thinking in terms of 'how do I serve the marketplace best?' and at the end of the day, we become closer to the customer. If we're closer to the customer, we react more quickly to the changing customer needs."

In Florida, the Tampa Bay Tribune, NBC partner WFLA-TV and Web site TBO.com operate from within the same newsroom and share operations, according to the Mediaweek article, posted by AdWeek.

The latest restructuring comes after a number of moves to offset the company's debt associated with the traditional media model. Earlier this year wages were frozen, retirement plans suspended, unpaid leave was enforced, five TV stations were sold and the Washington D.C. bureau was shuttered, Mediaweek reported.

"The media world is very, very different from even two years ago," Morton said. "The revenue streams don't support the kind of expense levels we used to maintain."