Troubled times for McClatchy (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Sacremento Bee ^ | September 21, 2008 | Dale Kasler

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The McClatchy Co. has slashed its work force by 20 percent, cut its shareholder dividend in half – and might have to trim some more.

In its 151st year, The Bee's parent and America's third-largest newspaper chain is facing "the biggest challenge in the company's modern history," said Gary Pruitt, McClatchy's chairman and chief executive officer.

Like practically every chain, McClatchy is struggling with a media revolution. Its newspapers, where it still makes most of its money, are losing ground to the Internet, though its combined newspaper-online readership is growing. But because of the insanely competitive nature of the Web, McClatchy's own Web sites can't grow their revenues quickly enough to make up the difference, even as their audiences grow.

To make matter worse, McClatchy is deeply in debt due to its $4 billion takeover of Knight Ridder Inc. in 2006, a deal that Pruitt now describes in much more sobering terms than before.

In an interview last week, Pruitt said it's "too early to tell" whether McClatchy made the right move in buying Knight Ridder. He believes the acquisition will eventually work out, but said the debt load – now $2.1 billion – has put McClatchy in an uncomfortable spot. Investors are nervous. McClatchy's stock has fallen almost 90 percent since the purchase was completed.

"It's hard to claim it's a good deal when you see the stock performance," Pruitt said.

He said McClatchy is facing "the biggest challenge in the company's modern history," even though it's "strongly profitable."

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ping

[Koblenz]

Think the government will bail out the newspaper industry?

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http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2008/09/22/story5.html?b=1222056000^1703067
Oregonian fights back
As ad revenue drops, paper offers buyouts, starts new publications

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=91172
Emmys Tank, Record Lowest Numbers Ever

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=91085
August Run: Newspapers Continue Rev Declines

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Overnights_50/ABC_s_Emmy_special_may_hit_new_lows.asp
ABC’s Emmy
special may hit new lows

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09212008/business/ad_spending_woes_worsen_130114.htm
AD SPENDING WOES WORSEN

[SevenofNine]

OH NOOOO don’t give Govt any ideassss

[RKV]

Having years of experience with one of the McClatchy papers (The Bee), I can tell you that if there ever was a newspaper chain deserving of being obsoleted (short of the NYT), McClatchy is the one. Schadenfreude.

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http://adage.com/article?article_id=131157
Media Owners Resigned to ‘08 Shortfall, Brace for Tougher ‘09

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4d072426-880e-11dd-b114-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
Online advertising hit by spending cuts

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6598045.html
Emmys Post Lowest Ratings Since 1992

[MaineConservative]

The print media, destroying America since 1776.

[Grampa Dave]

Some iberal controlled owned mutual funds are buying this loser.

One wonders what other liberal stock losers they have bought recently or in the last couple of years.

Do you own a mutual fund that is keeping this lying MSM loser afloat?

http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Holding=Mutual+Fund+Ownership&Symbol=MNI

[ncfool]

Well I called the KANSAS CITY STAR or better known as the KANSAS CITY FALLING STAR last week and cancelled my 20 year old subscription as the no longer report the news that’s fit to print.

The FALLING STAR customer service department was in Manila in the Philipines. Talk about moving jobs off shore. I know some time ago that the typesetting of the papers were also moved to India. I guess they love to report about the jobs moved overseas by the GOP. Do as I say not as I do type reporting.

[Chode]

[Gator113]

You just ruined my day.....

[andyandval]

Great post and call to action!

[redpoll]

For about twenty years I worked in the print media and radio. Anyone inside the industry could have seen the death of newspapers baack when I quit in 1995. The news industry is still strong, though, with innovations such as the Internet and talk radio, so I’m not concerned about the media as such. There are no longer town criers, either. The newspaper stopped being an important part of American life at about the time advocacy journalism came into vogue, about 1985, and has been slowly killing it ever since.

Interestingly, the Gramsciian takeover of the media by leftists has been successful, but only in killing the organization it meant to command. I’m starting to see the same thing with colleges and universities, too, as the value of a degree is starting to sink compared to the wealth offered by business or entrepreneurship. The same can be said of the mainline Christian churches when they went full liberal - congregations vanished and moved to more conservative churches. Gramscii didn’t consider that taking over the institutions of culture might leave them dead, while other, newer institutions would rise up to serve the people better.

Might be a brilliant thought. Might be BS. LOL

[Vicki]

Couldn't agree more. The News Tribune in Tacoma was a great company until Baker sold to McClatchey. After a few years under their regime myself, as well as lots of others began to leave. Up until then it was rare.

They laid off a lot of employees early this summer and now they are offering buy outs. Many of us saw the handwriting on the wall when the internet came along, but they couldn't/wouldn't believe it would be their demise, along with their bias reporting and outrageous ad pricing.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks.

This a ping/link to what my wife and I have doing this year up to this week with the core concept of avoiding owning anything controlled by liberals.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2088061/posts?page=5#5

[hinckley buzzard]

Gramscii didn’t consider that taking over the institutions of culture might leave them dead, while other, newer institutions would rise up to serve the people better.

Gramsci and the rest of the totalitarians like Obunghole don't care if the institutions survived or not. Their goal has been to destroy meaning and create chaos, which would justify the takeover of the culture by the State. This is what "community ORGANIZERS" are all about. As if a community, with its families and kinship groups, churches and schools, fraternal organizations and town halls, businesses and unions, needed some rat-bastard to come in and "organize" them. Only if all those other intermediating structures were demolished first.

It may well be that technological innovations like the Internet have thrown a monkey wrench into the works, as the assembly line of Henry Ford did almost a century before, single-handedly discrediting the Marxist analysis by enabling labor to buy the products of its own labor.

But yes, your thought is at least semi-brilliant.

[redpoll]

Very nice insight about the real role of community organizers. Now that’s real brilliance.