Posted on 10/11/2006 7:07:37 AM PDT by oxcart
NEW YORK, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Gannett Co. Inc, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, reported a lower third-quarter profit on Wednesday because of stock options expensing.
Gannett, which publishes USA Today and 89 other local daily papers, said net income fell to $261.4 million from $297 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Earnings from continuing operations were $1.11 a share, compared with $1.13 a share a year ago. Analysts expected $1.11 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Stock options expensing cost the company $6.4 million, or 3 cents a share, after taxes. Gannett said per-share earnings would have been higher than a year ago if that charge was excluded.
Revenue rose 2.7 percent to $1.91 billion.
Gannett is one of the first newspaper publishers to report its financial results, and analysts look to it as a harbinger of the sector's health.
(((PING)))
While not a huge change, the downward spiral is great news.
gannet is mostly fly over owned news papers so this is actually great news
Formerly owned by the Pulliam family (of which Dan Quayle is a member) it has gone to a liberal slant. Everything is doom and gloom, anti-tradition, anti-Republican, pro-socialist claptrap.
We now only take the Sunday paper for the ads. They have gotten so desperate for circulation numbers and ad revenue that they threw in the Thursday paper (grocery ads) and holiday papers (department store ads) for free, without us asking.
If I could get those ads and coupons somewhere else (our local stores mostly do not accept printed internet coupons) I would cancel the Sunday paper, which I rarely read.
In fact, I think advertisers could MAKE money on their ads by bundling them together and selling them as a subscription, cheaper than the paper.
It's not really great news if your wife works for the Indianapolis Star
They already have the solution. U.S.A. Today is now another quarter to 75 cents and the local papers are said to soon increase to the same. What's that make, a 50% revenue increase?
Does your mutual fund invest in Gannett?
Here are the funds with the largest holdings of Gannett:
Vanguard Windsor Ii Fund
Nordea 1 North American Value Fund
Washington Mutual Investors Fund, Inc
American Balanced Fund, Inc
Fidelity Equity-income Ii Fund
Vanguard 500 Index Fund
Fidelity Value Fund
Vanguard/wellington Fund, Inc
Ariel Appreciation Fund
Davis New York Venture Fund
Aim Charter Fund
Cref Stock Account
Oakmark Fund
Vanguard Institutional Index Fund
Van Kampen Comstock Fund
I have been suggesting that our local Gannett rag offer two editions - one would have only local news, obituaries, weather, etc. and the other would contain the national/international news as provided by the DNC and the left-wing editorial section. The public would then have a choice.
Thank you for the update on Gannett. Ever since they purchased our local paper, and most of the other smaller papers in Wisconsin, the slant has been anti-business, pro-union tripe.
The only reason we still subscribe is:
1) The comics
2) The obituaries
3) The birth announcements
4) The police reports
Hey, it's a small town--that IS entertainment for flyover country hillbillies like myself. . .
/sarc
May Jesus profoundly bless your day,
Joy
Harbinger all right, as in the later understanding of the word banshee
...hearing the banshee's wail came to predict a death in the family and seeing the banshee portends one's own death
Thank You!
Late, but nonetheless very gratifying, ping...
Gannett, Media General Disappoint in 3Q
NEW YORK (AP) - Newspaper industry bellwether Gannett Co. reported third-quarter earnings in line with expectations Wednesday, but the company's shares slumped after reporting a 3.9 percent decline in September advertising. Shares in Media General Inc. also fell after that company missed earnings estimates.
The reports did little to assuage investors' concerns about the newspaper business, which has been struggling with sluggish advertising and slumping circulation as readers and advertisers increasingly move to the Internet.
Gannett, which owns USA Today and 89 other daily U.S. newspapers, earned $261.4 million in the third quarter, down 12 percent from a year ago, as a poor advertising market continued to soften.
Part of the decline was because of stock-compensation expenses in the most recent period as well as one-time gains and discontinued operations in the year-ago period. On a continuing operations basis, the earnings fell 4.8 percent.
The per-share earnings of $1.11 were in line with the estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial and compared with $1.13 in the year-ago period excluding the year-ago gains. Stock- compensation expenses in the current quarter amounted to 3 cents per share. Companies began reporting those expenses this year in line with new accounting rules.
A sharp 3.9 percent slump in September newspaper advertising revenues caught investors' attention, particularly since it followed a 1.8 percent decline in August and a decline of less than half a percent in July.
The numbers were adjusted to exclude the effect of currency fluctuations -- Gannett owns a major newspaper publisher in the United Kingdom -- and calculated as if the same set of newspapers were owned in both periods.
Chief Executive Craig Dubow told analysts on a conference call that the results reflected a "very challenging" advertising environment that softened further as the quarter progressed.
With Gannett's size and geographic reach, many look to its results as an indicator of how the industry is doing. The weak monthly results signaled that September would be "no savior for newspapers," Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine wrote in a note to investors Wednesday. Fine said the fundamentals for both Gannett and the industry were "uncompelling" and were likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
Gannett's shares fell $1.54, or 2.7 percent, to $56.18 on the New York Stock Exchange, and shares of other publishers also weakened. No. 2 publisher McClatchy Co.'s shares fell $1.09, or 2.5 percent, to $42.04, and New York Times Co. fell 25 cents or 1.1 percent to $22.97.
By far the biggest decliner in the industry, however, was Media General, whose shares tumbled $3.20, or 8.4 percent, to $34.80 after the company reported earnings well below Wall Street's estimates.
The Richmond, Va.-based company reported net earnings of $20.6 million, or 87 cents per share, which included a gain of $11.8 million, or 50 cents per share, from the sale of several CBS television stations.
Excluding the gain, profit was $8.8 million, or 37 cents per share, below the results of $9.8 million, or 41 cents per share, in the year-ago period and also short of the 44 cents per share that analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had been expecting.
Media General's Chief Executive Marshall N. Morton told analysts on a conference call that the company wasn't satisfied with its third-quarter performance and wants all parts of the company to focus on growth strategies and cutting expenses.
Media General's publishing unit, which includes the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Tampa Tribune, reported a 12 percent drop in profit as revenue fell nearly 1 percent. Newspaper advertising revenues were flat with the year-ago period, reflecting an increase in retail ad sales and declines in national and classified ads.
Circulation sales fell 6 percent, primarily because of the elimination of subsidies to independent carriers at several newspapers.
Gannett 3Q Earns Fall on Weak Ads
NEW YORK — Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in the country, reported a 12 percent decline in third-quarter earnings Wednesday on weaker advertising, stock option expenses and one-time gains in the same period a year ago.
Gannett, whose properties include USA Today and 89 other daily newspapers in the United States, earned $261.4 million in the three months ending in September, down from $297 million in the comparable period a year earlier.
Craig Dubow, Gannett's CEO, told Wall Street analysts in a conference call that the results reflected a "very challenging" advertising environment that softened further as the quarter progressed.
Gannett also reported Wednesday that its newspaper advertising revenues, excluding the effects of currency fluctuations and assuming the same set of newspapers was owned in both periods, fell 3.9 percent in September, following a 1.8 percent decline in August and a decline of less than half a percent in July.
Gannett is often seen as a bellwether for the newspaper industry.
Gannett's shares fell $1.47, or 2.5 percent, to $56.25 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares in other newspaper companies also fell, including Media General Inc., whose shares fell 8 percent after the Richmond, Va.-based company missed Wall Street's earnings estimates.
On a per-share basis, Gannett's earnings fell to $1.11 from $1.22, in line with the estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. The most recent quarter also included 3 cents per share in stock compensation expenses.
The year-ago period included one-time gains from the sale of several newspapers as well as earnings from discontinued operations. Excluding those effects, the year-ago earnings from continuing operations were $274.6 million or $1.13 per share.
Revenues rose 2.7 percent to $1.91 billion from $1.86 billion as the company acquired two television stations, took in higher amounts of political advertising and consolidated a Detroit newspaper partnership with MediaNews Group Inc.
Revenues from newspapers, which makes up the majority of Gannett's business, rose 1.2 percent in the quarter as it added a newspaper in Tallahassee, Fla., and consolidated the Detroit partnership.
Had the company owned the same set of newspapers in both periods, advertising revenue would have slipped 1.2 percent, the company reported. On the same basis, local advertising revenues rose 1 percent while national advertising fell 3.4 percent and classified ads fell 2.3 percent.
Newspaper operating costs rose 4.2 percent as the company consolidated the Detroit newspaper operation and recorded higher newsprint expenses. Had the company owned the same set of newspapers in both periods, costs would have been up 1.3 percent.
At USA Today, advertising revenues edged up 1 percent while paid advertising pages declined 7 percent to 912.
Gannett's broadcasting division, which operates 23 TV stations, reported a 17.9 percent gain in revenues, or 11.1 percent had the company owned the same stations in both periods.
In addition to its daily U.S. daily newspapers, Gannett also owns nearly 1,000 non-daily publications in the United States and the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United Kingdom, Newsquest.
And just think of the employee's 401k's - melting like ice cream on a Redneck Riviera beach in July...
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