Posted on 08/24/2007 5:08:52 AM PDT by abb
Publishing Advertising Revenues Decline 10.3%; Television Revenues Down 3.7%
CHICAGO, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB - News) today reported its summary of revenues and newspaper advertising volume for period 7, ended Aug. 5, 2007. Consolidated revenues for the period were $467 million, down 5.9 percent from last year's $496 million. Publishing revenues in July were $319 million compared with $349 million last year, down 8.6 percent. Advertising revenues decreased 10.3 percent to $247 million, compared with $275 million in July 2006.
-- Retail advertising revenues decreased 6.0 percent with the largest declines in the department stores and home furnishings categories, partially offset by improvements in the health care and restaurant categories. Preprint revenues, which are principally included in retail, were up 3 percent for the period. -- National advertising revenues fell 3.7 percent, with declines in auto, financial and resorts, partially offset by an improvement in the movie category. -- Classified advertising revenues decreased 18.2 percent. Real estate fell 24 percent with the most significant declines in the Florida markets, Los Angeles and Chicago due to difficult year-over-year comparisons. Help wanted declined 19 percent and automotive decreased 14 percent. Interactive revenues, which are primarily included in classified, were $22 million, up 11 percent, due to growth in most categories.
Circulation revenues were down 5.4 percent due to single-copy declines and continued selective discounting in home delivery.
Broadcasting and entertainment group revenues in July were flat at $147 million as a decrease in television revenues was offset by increased revenues at the Chicago Cubs and Tribune Entertainment. Television revenues fell 3.7 percent, with lower automotive, movie and political advertising, partially offset by strength in the telecom/wireless and health care categories.
ping
The Trib used to be a good paper. Col. McCormack must be turning over in his grave at what it’s become.
We can't wait to feed on those soaked in alcohol pink meat Tribuneral liberal mediots.
Tribune’s July revenue falls 5.9%
(AP) — Tribune Co. said Friday that its July revenue fell 5.9% as classified advertising sales sank on a sharp drop in its real estate category.
The company said consolidated revenue for the period ended Aug. 5 slipped to $467 million from $496 million a year ago.
Publishing revenue slid 8.6% to $319 million as ad revenue sagged 10.3% to $247 million.
National ad sales dipped 3.7% with auto, financial and resort softness partially offset by strength in the company’s movie category....
http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=26130&seenIt=1
But it's not their fault, of course. This time the blame is "due to difficult year-over-year comparisons." Though one must wonder if their circulation would continue to have dropped had they heeded my suggestion that newspapers "get rid of the bias, the America-hating columnists, the socialist editorials, and the reporters pushing a gay/lesbian/transgendered/illegal alien/pro-abortion/anti-God/anti-gun agenda"
Or they could continue doing what they're doing.
The first attempt by the The Powers That Be to to engineer a morning monopoly for the Washington Post by acquiring the competing Times-Herald failed.
[Meyer and Graham] increased their offer but they never had the inside track, which belonged to Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the conservative isolationist Chicago publisher. In the end McCormick took over the Times-Herald.
"Conservative isolationist" as opposed to a supposedly superior "liberal internationalist". It seems to me that a "conservative isolationist" practices the virtue of minding one's own business whereas a "liberal internationalist" plays the part of the voyeur constantly sticking its unwelcome nose into other people's business.
Superficial internationalism liberal style most likely extends only as far as like minded people in foreign countries with the chutzpah to speak for an entire nation. Doubtful that liberal internationalists want to dig down to the conservative bedrock of a nation. Liberal internationalists probably felt a bit isolationist the day that French conservatives told liberals to shove their European Union.
The Powers That Be ultimately succeeded in their quest to eliminate competition by acquiring the Times-Herald. The Colonel's niece, Bazy Tankersley, who published the Times-Herald at the time of its sale failed to get McCormick to appreciate the gathering threat posed by Meyer-Graham liberalism.
The paper was to go to Meyer; Meyer he knew and Meyer in some way he trusted. Meyer might be a little liberal, but he was sound, he knew money, he was not going to do something rash. McCormick did not think of himself as selling to Graham, Graham was someone much younger and thus much less important; in McCormick's mind it was Meyer's money, thus it would be Meyer's property. To him the Post was Meyer, as it had been for some twenty years. In reality, it was by then Graham's paper. (It was not unlike the moment in 1970 after Captain Harry Guggenheim, the owner of Newsday, "the Long Island daily, hired Bill Moyers to be his editor with many promises that Moyers would eventually inherit the paper. When Moyers turned out to be quite liberal, the Captain was appalled, and knowing his life was near the end, he tried to think of a very good sound conservative publisher whom he could sell to. He immediately thought of his old friend Norman Chandler, a wonderful Taft Republican, and he called Norman, who was delighted by the idea, and the deal was made in a few minutes. What Norman did not mention was that his son, Otis Chandler, now ran the family's properties, and Otis was ideologically very close to Moyers.)
Unlike dense Tribune Company bureaucrats trying to spin a huge drop in classified revenue as an outlier Eugene Meyer understood the significance of classified advertising.
It had always been Meyer's dream to pass the Star in classified advertising; that to him would be proof that his paper had truly reached the city, reached the real working people.
Having spent years - decades, actually - in quest of bumper sticker explanations for "bias in the media," I have by and large converged on my favorite quotations:Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin FranklinThe wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore RooseveltThose wise quotations go a very long way in explaining the phenomenon. For a long time, I have been interested in the transition from the strongly but openly partisan journalism of the founding era to the mere covertly tendentious journalism of today. Having recently read and reported to you on the development of the early e-mail known as the "telegram," I see that I must do some reading about the origins and behavior of the Associated Press. It looks very much like the Associated Press may be the nexus of the go-along-and-get-along pseudo objectivity of modern journalism.
cIc, I've given up worrying about bias anymore. In fact, I hope they don't change - they'll put themselves out of business all the faster. The past two years of observing and chronicling the demise of the Dinosaur Media has been immensely more satisfying than the previous 35 years of trying to work with them and prompting them to see the error of their ways. They weren't interested in hearing anything we had to say.
Throughout history, the Keeper of the Tablets, the Village Storyteller or the Town Crier has been one of the most powerful people in society. And they've always tried to monopolize their power.
And now their dying. I'm thankful the Lord let me live to see it. It's glorious.
I alluded above to Abraham Lincoln's T-mails. And your tagline(The Dinosaur Media: A One-Way Medium in a Two-Way World)makes me think of the Southerners who systematically resisted not only the telegraph but the long-distance railroad! Come to think of it, restricting yourself to one-way "communication" is about as insular, and as self-limiting, as freezing out the telegraph was for the South.
abb and milhous have done yeoman’s work in posting these articles to FR. Thanks to them for all they do!
cIc, your comment about resisting the telegraph and long distance train lines in the south intrigues me to no end. Is there a particular history book you’d recommend that talks about it? If not, I guess the Internet will have to do. What was their main concern? Public domain land acquisition?
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