Posted on 07/17/2008 5:16:47 AM PDT by abb
Media General Inc (MEG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) reported a second-quarter loss on Thursday, hurt by a severance charge and a 17 percent drop in newspaper advertising revenue, and said it would take a writedown of as much as $550 million.
The publisher of the Tampa Tribune and Richmond Times-Dispatch posted a second-quarter preliminary loss of $129,000, or a penny a share, compared with net income of $5.1 million, or 22 cents a share, in the second quarter last year.
The results do not include the effects of the expected non-cash writedown.
Revenue fell to $204.8 million from $228.2 million last year. (Reporting by Robert MacMillan; Editing by Derek Caney)
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
ping
Always a pleasure to read these. Thank you Abb.
The Hanover plant suffered a devastating fire a year ago, destroying one of three presses. The Times-Dispatch is probably the worst looking paper on the east coast with almost no color to it because it does not have the printing capacity to run color because of the fire.
Also, its news deadlines are so early that anything that happens after 11pm ususally does not make the morning paper. That is terrible especially for sports fans.
Now they are going to add another morning paper to the daily load!?
The Times-Dispatch is late now about twice a month on average because of “production problems” at the Hanover plant.
MG accepted a $50 million insurance payment for the fire loss, but I have read noting about whether they are going to fix the press or just take the money and run.
Ah, refreshing news in these days of the Obamaloon. More loss to the press. May they all look forward to learning the phrase, “Do you want to supersize that?”
Update with more details.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN1732356320080717?rpc=44
UPDATE 1-Media General flips to loss, plans write-down
(Honolulu) Advertiser laying off 54 workers
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?Dato=20080716&Kategori=BREAKING03&Lopenr=80716061&Ref=AR&Show=0
The New Single-Digit Newspaper Stock
Is this the Big Board, or the Dollar Store? Nearly all newspaper stock prices have shrunk to the single-figure level.
By Mark Fitzgerald
CHICAGO (July 16, 2008) — Two events on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday seemed to sum up the woeful state of publicly traded newspaper companies.
First, shares of E.W. Scripps, newly minted as a newspaper and local broadcast company, began trading with a three-to-one reverse stock split. To what lofty level did this price-enhancing maneuver raise Scripps (NYSE: SSP) shares? At the end of the day, just $9.31.
Then shares of GateHouse Media Inc. (NYSE: GHS) traded below $1, entering the dreaded penny-stock territory. By the 4 p.m. EDT end of trading, GateHouse was priced at 97 cents — which could get the stock barred from floor trading and even de-listing if it continues to close below a buck.
By falling to less than the cost of one of its Sunday newspapers, GateHouse shares followed three other publicly traded newspaper companies whose stock can be picked up for pocket change. Wednesday afternoon, Journal Register Co. (Other OTC: JRCO.PK) closed at 14 cents; American Community Newspapers (AMEX: ANE) ended at 20 cents; and Sun-Times Media Group (OTC BB: SUTM.OB) would set you back a whopping 35 cents.
It isn’t just these exiles from the Big Board who have anorexic stock prices, though. Of the 13 publicly traded newspaper companies that E&P tracks, just four sell for more than $10 a share, and that’s including the self-described “diversified education and media company” Washington Post Co., whose stock has long traded in the high $500s range. (Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) closed at $578.50 Wednesday.)
It isn’t even certain that the prices of The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) — which closed at $12.59 Wednesday — or Media General Inc. (NYSE: MEG) — going for $11.31 at the end of trading — will remain in double digits after they report second-quarter earnings in the coming days.
Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI) seems comfortably in double digits, though its worse-than-expected Q2 report Wednesday had investors hammering down its price by $1.57, or 9.02%, in midday trading to $15.81. It, er, rebounded by the end of trading to $16.57, a 6.73% decline.
Either way, it’s quite a comedown for a stock that in the past 52 weeks traded as high as $55.37.
But then every newspaper company now trading in single digits could once boast of having a grown-up price that didn’t move in big percentage terms by a swing of a few cents. Those days are fading fast, however, and hope of a rebound is slim indeed.
Consider The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), once a Wall Street favorite that’s ended Wednesday at $5.02 a share. It hasn’t traded in double digits since May 2.
Lee Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: LEE), which closed on a rare up day at $3.37 Wednesday, last saw $10 on April 8. And
GateHouse hasn’t sold for more than $10 a share since Nov. 13, 2007.
The newspaper industry’s strategy of shrinking newsroom and newshole seems not to be helping their shrunken stock prices.
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P’s editor-at-large.
Links referenced within this article
mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/mailto:
Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/newspaperbeat_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003828508
About the only real news they seem to print are the never ending accounts of corrupt city and county officials and the weekly revelation of more school teachers having sexual orgies and liaisons with their students.
The Trib's motto seems to be “We will continue to downsize and reduce meaningful content until circulation rebounds.”
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