Gannett, Gatehouse talking merger

An awful lot of sales staffers across the board whacked - sure maybe they just have Gatehousers take over those accounts, but why not integrate them into the enterprise and wait until they fail to earn their keep.

 

How much should you trust the new CEO, Mike Reed? In the link he said asset sales of the 250 odd newspapers were not planned.

I lift this quote from the transcript of the most recent New Media Investment, a.k.a Gatehouse earnings call, approximately one month ago.

Mike Reed -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

" I would expect that you would see asset sales throughout the entire year, beginning in the first quarter and continuing through the fourth quarter. "

So he has said two completely opposite things in a month.

Another item I found bizarre was this.

In the conference call Reed said that he expected the company to lose 600 million dollars in advertising revenue over the next three years. But Reed said in the link that Gatehouse could gain much of the lost revenue back through event management, such as organizing events banquets. There are about 21,000 high schools in the USA. Aren't most high school banquets organized by volunteers? How much business is out there for paid organizers of high school sports banquets?

And finally. Reed said that Gannett had better systems than Gatehouse. Why is that? Reed has been CEO of New Media Incorporated since 2006. I would think his job was to develop good management systems. And now Reed is CEO of a much larger company?

 

Depending on how they structure severence X weeks per number of years, I can understand not trashing a company if you are still being technically on their books until the payouts end. But still a bad look for a a news organization that put Fox News and NBC's NDAs on their front page.

 

GateHouse did (does) its own high school all-star banquets, "Best of Preps" throughout the country.

 

Mike Reed is a liar. Always has been.

 

GateHouse bought a company up here a few years back that organized the local road races. I’m sure they got a cut of the donations from whatever nonprofit they were partnering with.

 

Newspapers are hilarious. Event banquets and the selling of buildings/land are the big time money making ideas. Nothing to do with journalism. Why the hell would event banquets make a lot of money and who is planning them? Sounds like a job . for the suits. I wonder if they delegate such banquet planning.

 

The banquets are the end of the year All-Star celebrations. The all-area / all-county / all-state teams you do through the year? You have a big banquet at the end -- May or June -- with a lot of sponsors.

That's the simple answer but there's a lot to it, including a guest speaker, etc.

 

I am sure it is a lot of work. But Gannett/Gatehouse chain has 250 dailies. If each event grossed 40k that is 10 million, which is not a lot when the company believes it will lose 200 million for three years in advertising revenue.