John Zieser pulled off a few deals for Meredith Corp. while serving as its general counsel and vice president of corporate services. One was the $115 million acquisition of American Baby magazine two years ago; another was the purchase of a Saginaw, Mich., radio station last month. But now that CEO William Kerr has designated him VP of corporate development, Zieser's status as Meredith's resident M&A maven is official.

"We realized we didn't have a dedicated focus on transaction-related opportunities," he says. And in this market, where private equity players aggressively compete for media properties that strategic buyers once had to themselves, an unfocused approach to M&A would no longer do. It wouldn't do not only because Meredith has a great story to tell - the Des Moines, Iowa-based publisher and broadcaster emerged stronger than ever from the worst advertising downturn since the Depression - but also because it knows exactly what it wants.

The 17 consumer magazines of its publishing division render Meredith the country's foremost authority on home and family. Of the 4 million U.S. births each year, for example, Zieser boasts that American Baby reaches 2 million of their mothers. But then there's a gap until these subscribers return a decade or so later as 40-somethings who curl up with older-skewing Meredith titles such as Ladies' Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens.

"Women in their 30s," Zieser muses. "Now that's a very attractive place for us to fill in."

So, too, he continues, are television properties near the 12 stations Meredith already owns. Clustering in regions means as much to its broadcasting division as mass circulation means to its publishing division. And clustering TV stations to create duopolies - or two same-owner outlets in a single market - permits economies of the sort publicly traded companies can't afford not to pursue.

To that end, Zieser has already negotiated a swap with Fox Television Stations to create a Meredith duopoly of television stations in Portland, Ore. He's optimistic other stations in his sights will sell or trade, too. The timing couldn't be better, he says, in that election-year ad spending promises to raise a station's cash flow to a level that, once accorded standard industry multiples, makes the idea of selling too tantalizing to ignore.

But for any such deals to happen, Zieser, who in an earlier life worked at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (as an M&A lawyer for Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s media team), knows it has to be a "priority focus." And so it is, not only for Zieser but for the "very small but skilled team" he's currently presenting to Meredith's operating units as their very own revenue enhancers. - Richard Morgan

Join Corporate Dealmaker's LinkedIn forum