Posted on 09/21/2006 9:11:01 PM PDT by Milhous
The New York Times Co. (NYT,Trade) on Thursday forecast a sharp fall in third-quarter earnings, joining a growing group of media companies suffering from a summer slump in advertising.
The announcement sent the publisher's shares down 5 percent and came after similar warnings from Dow Jones & Co Inc. (DJ,Trade), Belo Corp. (BLC,Trade), Media General Inc. (MEG,Trade), as well as online media giant Yahoo Inc. (YHOO,Trade).
"I think overall there is a watering down of (advertising) budgets," Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries, a marketing strategy company in Atlanta, said.
Advertisers have not increased their budgets to match the rising number of outlets, she said.
"The slump is not the result of a soft economy or a move to a new medium. They're moving it (advertising dollars) all over the place because they're looking for something that works."
The New York Times blamed a poor advertising market for its forecast that third-quarter earnings would drop to a range of 8 cents to 10 cents per share, from 16 cents in the same quarter last year.
The publisher of The New York Times and the Boston Globe said its estimate includes a 1 cent to 2 cents charge for staff reduction costs, and a 2 cents to 3 cents charge related to the sale of its investment in the Discovery Times Channel.
Excluding these items, The New York Times is expecting earnings of 11 cents to 15 cents a share, short of the consensus estimate of 18 cents per share according to analysts polled by Reuters Estimates.
"The print advertising market has been very challenging during July and August and remains so in September," Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement.
Earlier on Thursday, Dallas Morning News publisher Belo Corp. warned it was unlikely to meet its revenue forecast for its newspaper group because of "uneven" retail and national advertising. Belo had forecast in its last earnings report that newspaper advertising revenue would be flat in the third quarter.
Yahoo warned on Tuesday that it saw weakness in recent weeks from advertising by the auto and financial sectors, and said its third-quarter revenue would be at the bottom half of its forecast range.
Dow Jones cut its third-quarter earnings forecast on Monday citing disappointing advertising revenue at the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Richmond Times-Dispatch publisher Media General cut its third-quarter revenue forecast for its publishing and broadcast divisions last week and said it expects national advertising and circulation revenue to fall.
The New York Times has said it would consolidate printing operations and cut jobs as it tries to control costs.
It said that it would put its broadcast media group up for sale. It also said that Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Vice Chairman Michael Golden would give up a total of $2 million of stock-based pay this year to create a bonus pool for staff in a morale-boosting move.
Ping.
That was one fast pinggggggg!
BOO HOO!
The sooner the MSM goes out of business, the better off we all will be!
N Y TIMES CL A (NYSE:NYT) Delayed quote data
After Hours: 21.73 Down 1.10 (4.82%)
Last Trade: 22.83
Trade Time: Sep 21
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NYT
Many remain stubbornly oblivious to their own dwindling fortunes. Looks like tribunesaurus wants to try to repurpose itself making FitzSimons a bigger tool than even his Truthsayer to Power, Dean Baquet.
That moron Baquet and three others who control the newsroom have a suicide pact, where if one gets fired, they all quit at once.
'cause no body reads their tabloid BS sh!t anymore!!
Direct mail. That's the best advertising dollars we ever spent. Newspaper ads were the worst money we spent on advertising. It was like throwing money down a hole. Besides, the fact they never got anything right the first two or three times even when we typed it out and gave it to them.
Good, they're still in denial. They won't change, and hence will die out.
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