Posted on 03/14/2006 10:49:12 AM PST by abb
Anybody want to buy a couple of struggling newspapers in Philadelphia? How about San Jose? Akron? Aberdeen, S.D., perhaps?
With intense competition from the Internet and shrinking advertising revenue, these are tough times in the newspaper business. But McClatchy Co. is banking on the prospect that its cast-offs -- even ones suffering the most from the challenging media environment -- may be somebody else's treasure.
Yesterday McClatchy, as expected, announced a $4.5 billion cash-and-stock deal to buy Knight Ridder Inc., the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher by circulation, with 32 dailies. But McClatchy said it intends to keep only 20 papers and sell the remaining dozen.
McClatchy said nearly all 12 on the block failed to meet the Sacramento, Calif., company's investment criteria. Either they were in markets with low or no growth, or their margins were too low, or both. The St. Paul Pioneer Press is being sold because of antitrust concerns; McClatchy owns the competing Minneapolis paper, the Star Tribune.
McClatchy Chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt said in an interview that the company is already marketing the papers and he would seek to sell them "with alacrity." He said McClatchy would consider selling them piecemeal or as a group, and left open the possibility of a swap or other tax-efficient way of divesting the papers.
Who would buy? Analysts and newspaper industry executives say among the top names is the nation's largest newspaper publisher, Gannett Co., McLean Va. Some Knight Ridder papers might be appealing to Gannett because they are in markets adjacent to papers Gannett already owns. For instance, Gannett owns the Indianapolis Star; Knight Ridder owns the nearby Fort Wayne News Sentinel. A spokeswoman for Gannett said it would have no comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
What happened ? Who is eyewonder.com ?
While FreeRepublic was down I went to my local book buyer and tried to sell some old books I had around the house and they basically told me they were not buying books anymore. So not only are the newspapers going under so are the book sellers.
One lefty company buying up another lefty company, and spinning off the excess to a third lefty company.
When will it end?
The Philly Inquirer has on their front page today that they are up on the auction block - What a nice day and a nice thing to happen to newspaper that ran for 21 days endorsements of Kerry (yes - 21 days straight).
"Begging like common medicants....rattling a tin cup...."
It's almost funny, if it weren't so sad. By that, I mean, there are a lot of innocent, hard working people that are going to get whacked. But, our local, arrogant, left leaning rag, The Akron Beacon Journal, is on the list of 12.
A local columnist was whining about the paper's "worth" beyond profit. B.S. If it's that valuable, it will continue, or something else will come in it's place.
Perhaps if the weasels didn't lean so far left, and treat it's readers like morons, it wouldn't be an issue. And maybe, just maybe, if they had real reporters, I'd buy the darn thing. When you have to read, and re-read articles to try to figure out what the author is saying... well, High School sophmores do better work.
The Akron BJ. Appropriate name, RIP.
They are giving me papers I did not even order. I only found this out when I was snow blowing 10" of snow, and the paper jammed my snowblower. Now I have to take it apart or burn the paper out. I might win the darwin award when I blow up.
}:-)4
We got dozens of calls from our local paper offering all sorts of "deals." I finally told them that if they call us one more time that we would report them.
They stopped.
The only paper I read is the WSJ.
Eventually these local newspapers will become so devalued that they'll be sold on the cheap to a local type with money, probably a Republican, who will craft his own "We Report, You Decide" type of local journalism.
The future is going to be fun, people. It's going to happen. It's just going to take some time.
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