Mike Reed Sets Goals for New Gannett

The most ludicrous part of that release was where Gannett said that digital revenues will increase by over 10% next year, despite by only growing 2.9% in 2023. Digital circulation is down slightly and the digital ad market is soft, as evidenced by the slew of layoffs in the industry. But Gannett, after decades of digital futility, is going to become an industry digital leader.

 

They are clearly counting on some percentage of people willing to pay some percentage of a price increase to generate that revenue — same strategy they’ve used to artificially keep the decline in print revenue from being even more precipitous. It’s a lot of algebra with a lot of variables and if you get one of them wrong, it’s fairly disastrous.

 

Gannett is closing their McLean facility and consolidating into other office space in the company. Headquarters will move to New York City, The transcript of the earnings call I read said the USAID staff will transfer to the Washington bureau. I suppose that is a typo and they meant the USA Today staff. The company is going all in on remote work since they are selling off all the office space.

 

Reed has paid down debt through selling off closed properties but the pantry has got to be near empty.

 

I thought they sold off most of the Crystal Palace years ago.

The USAT logo was taken off the right tower quite a while ago, IIRC.

The Gannett side was already 75 percent empty when I was last there in 2009.

 

I thought Gannett vacated the Crystal Palace years ago and moved to McLean. The company is vacating McLean and taking a 45 million dollar hit on the income statement because the lease ahs about seven years to run. I guess the hope is that the property can be sublet.

 

But where will they keep the blue ball sculpture?

 

The Crystal Palace is in McLean, less than a mile from Tysons — I assumed that was what you were talking about. Didn’t know they moved somewhere else.

 

Just picked up the weekend USA Today while in the airport for something to read — if it’s 20 pages, I’d be surprised. Only two books now. Used to be three or four.

 

My bad. I assumed the Crystal Palace you refered to was the was the old building in Roslyn. I thought Gannett was still in Roslyn in 2009.

 

A line from a Gannett job posting in my area:
"We’re on a mission to save local journalism. You interested?"
Later on...
"For now, you’ll be our only reporter in Podunkville and you’ll need to be highly self-motivated and resourceful"

This is a town of roughly 25,000...I regularly hear complaints that the Podunkville Paper is essentially the same thing as subscribing to the Metropolis Media Company 100 miles away.