Posted on 09/14/2007 6:45:10 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
The Gray Lady's Bones Are Showing
David Lee Smith
September 14, 2007
This is almost like watching a slow starvation. New York Times' (NYSE: NYT) advertising revenue, already on a steady slide for years, fell another 3.2% in August.
The bad news is nothing new. Let's glance through the negatives, shall we?
The News Media Group -- the newspapers -- saw revenue drop by 4.6% in a single month.
All-important classified revenue plummeted 20% in the month, as weakness in real estate, help-wanted, and automobile ads took its toll.
The hardest-hit entities were the New England Media Group, where ad revenue fell by 9% and the Regional Media Group, whose ad sales dropped by 11.9%. The New York Times Media Group was essentially flat, with a 0.2% increase.
There were still a few bright spots:
Internet ad revenue grew by 28.2%.
About.com checked in with ad sales up 27.4%.
But my Foolish friends know that, while the latter two percentages are impressive, the absolute amounts involved are dwarfed by those in the sinking traditional newspaper operations.
Times joins other publishers such as Gannett (NYSE: GCI), McClatchy (NYSE: MNI), and Tribune (NYSE: TRB) in recording virtually unbroken strings of ad-revenue declines. As a result, Times' share price -- which seemed stable in the mid-$20s -- began sliding again this summer, closing yesterday at $20.24. In a little more than three years, shares have shed half their value.
There were more reasons why August turned out to be a downer for Times. Late in the month, Moody's Investors Service cut its rating outlook on the company from "stable" to "negative." The credit rating company cited -- no surprises here -- increased pressure on Times' advertising revenue.
As this journalistic institution steadily decays, it's hard for me to imagine the changes Times will have to make in the next five years to remain viable. I can't envision a Rupert Murdoch springing forth with an attractive offer for the company, as was the case at Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ).
Obviously, the company needs some sort of tourniquet to stem its bleeding, and soon. In the meantime I can only imagine what Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and CEO Janet Robinson would give for just one month of positive numbers.
It's time to grab a bowl of popcorn and watch the show as the Gray Lady starves herself...
Good. I wish them total failure.
Related:
even still,
the nyt will help elect hillary in 2008.
People who have stopped subscribing to the NYT and many of the other local papers have found that the are saving money and they don’t have to clean the expectorated coffee off the breakfast table and floor.
This is no great shock. The Sulzbergers plan to drive NYT stock into the toilet, then buy all the common shares at rock bottom prices, until they have enough of it to privatize “their” paper. Literally they will buy back all the remaining common stock at fractions of a penny per share.
And a federal judge has ruled they can do it. Their special stock gives them complete rights over corporate policy, and common stockholders have no rights to force them to make decisions that would maintain or increase stock value.
In other words, anyone still holding NYT stock should have sold it long ago. It is worthless, unless you can find some fool to buy it.
More facts for the NYT obituary you’re compiling...
Faster, please.
The owners are using TNYT as a political tool - it isn’t for making money.
Highly recommended. I've been hanging out there since 1998.
Can’t die dead enough for me.
Look at it this way... the will save millions of trees and get rid of a lot of dead wood.
When Hilldabeast speaks about Americans want change and she and her ilk are the change, all the liberal rags across the country are going down the toilet faster than we can flush, no one listened to liberal progressive radio when it existed and had to be supported by outside entitties, and they cried for a fairness doctrine because they could not hold an audience. Are they all living in bizzaro world? It only shows they are listening to themselves talk and not listening to what the American people want!
..ha ha ha..and they just shot themselves in the foot in September by granting a 62% discount to Moron.org that every other political organization will demand till 2008, thereby slicing their potential full page ad revenues by a factor of nearly 3.
That turned out to be a VERY expensive ad NYT, don't ya think?
I will dance the Dance of Joy the last day the ‘Slimes is published; that day cannot come too soon for me. In a just country. Pinch would be hanged for treason...and I’d gladly hold the rope on which he swung.
The paper is ripe for young Ted Turner type...who has dad’s money and nothing to do. I’m guessing that one day...such a guy will walk in and flip the paper upside down.
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