McClatchy Revenue Down 18% On Continued Ad Softness (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Editor & Publisher ^ | November 19, 2008 | Staff

[abb]

October provided no relief for The McClatchy Co., with the nation's third-largest newspaper company reporting Wednesday that consolidated revenues dropped 17.8% in the month compared to a year ago on advertising that slipped 20.4%.

The month was an essential re-run of steep ad revenue fall-off the chain has been reporting month after month this year.

Classified ad revenue, for instance, dropped 35.8% on continuing precipitous drops in the most important categories. Employment was down 48.6% for the month, real estate down 41.5%, and automotive down 30.5%.

Retail ad revenue fell 11%, and national was off 13.9%.

There was one bright spot, CFO Pat Talamantes, said: Online ad revenue increased 12.4%, and was up in all categories except help-wanted.

"In fact, when employment advertising, which has declined both in print and online as a result of the nationwide slowdown in hiring, is excluded our online advertising revenue was up 57.6% in October 2008 compared to October 2007," he said in a statement.

As before, McClatchy's Florida and California papers produced the worst numbers, though no region ended October with ad revenue gains.

Ad revenue in California fell 23.1% from the year-ago month, while Florida was down 21.1%.

"October advertising activity turned out to be similar to recent months," Talamantes said. "The economic slowdown continues to hurt consumer confidence and as a result negatively impacts our advertising customers in the local markets we serve."

For the first 10 months of the year, total revenue is down 15.5%, and ad revenue is off 17.4%, McClatchy said. Online is up 10.9% for the year.

[abb]

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[abb]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/NY-Times-Media-General-fall-apf-13622449.html
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http://www.cjr.org/starting_thoughts/new_media_new_opportunities.php?page=all
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http://thebiglead.com/?p=9452
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2008/11/18/20081118biz-republicdbacks1118.html
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[Enterprise]

The pending bankruptcy of the big three is giving consumers pause on buying their products, and banks might be having second thoughts on loaning money to for their purchases. So it doesn’t make much sense to spend a lot on advertising right now does it? Retail sales are being hurt right now, and with closures of places like Mervyn’s and Circuit City, plus who knows how many others to follow, and the lagging housing industry, it doesn’t look good for advertising in the McClatchy papers. As the last employee leaves, he or she should go to the nearest McClatchy wall, and as a final gesture of thanks - pee on it.

[bert]

......they plan to increase their ad spending online....

For some time now I have wondered about online advertising. Does anybody pay attention to on line adds? My browser trashes popups, and I never look at others. As a matter of fact, I find videos overlayed with a mandatory add offensive and often won’t watch any of it.

It would seem to me that advertisers are abandonening the skillet for the fire.

[abb]

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/
In broad selloff, GCI stock plunges more than 12%

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-feds-wont-bail-out-newspapers.html
Why feds won’t bail out newspapers

http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/
McClatchy shares down 18 percent Wednesday

http://timwindsor.com/
Print less to save the paper and the business

http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/
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http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/
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http://newsafternewspapers.blogspot.com/
The bottom line: how it fares when you nuke your newspaper

[abb]

I have read (or maybe I dreamed it, lol) that online ads are more “efficient” than broadcast. I suppose they can determine that from the click-throughs. It is logical that ads placed on sites with similar interests would work well. An example would be an advertisement for subscriptions to National Review on Townhall.com or some such.

[o2bfree]

They’ve lost all credibility in the markets they serve. Why not have a single McClatchy rag serving up their liberal tripe. Why do it through so called local newspapers?

[Ken H]

[abb]

One other point. Regardless of the ‘efficiency’ of online ads vs broadcast ads, it is not debatable that eyeballs are migrating to online at the expense of TV and newspapers and magazines.

And advertisers follow eyeballs every time.

[GOPGuide]

There’s no way that they even make up 10% of total revenue of any American newspaper (Nationals excluded like NYT, USA Today, WSJ) based on the rates and inventory I’ve seen.

I love how they argue “except for Job ads we were up even more”.

It’s like Hitler saying in early 1945 “Except for Russia we have won the war”.

:)

[bert]

.......And advertisers follow eyeballs every time......

I understand that point but for companies like P&G that are literally the result of advertising, with tons of products, be able to attract the minds running the eyeballs?

I think maybe the P&G collaberation with Google might be the way to come up with something completely new. Necessity is the mother of invention

[GOPGuide]

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/
Execs Admit There’s a Problem

No shit, what was your first clue?

:)

[abb]

I too found that WSJ story the most interesting of all today. A glimpse of the future. And they are the single largest advertiser in the world.

Did you see the MediaNews story about the declining audience of soap operas?

And this just popped up. Poor Sam. He’s screwed.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYnWqyKisD9eyp_9wX2Hsq0ZHKKwD94IA7OO0
MLB says deadline for Chicago Cubs bids is Dec. 1

[Ken H]

Today's box score:

The McClatchy Company (MNI)

Last Trade: 1.51

Trade Time: 4:06PM ET

Day's Range:1.50 - 1.88

52wk Range: 1.48 - 15.60

Market Cap: 124.48M

(data from Yahoo!)

[webschooner]

Even in this shiite economy, you can always find a little bit of good news if you search hard enough.

So just die already, lamestream medjia.