Gannett, Gatehouse talking merger

Shareholder vote tomorrow. As always, best of luck to everyone.

 

Because the “marketing services” these companies have provided for the past 15 years — advertising — has sold so easily. That’s oversimplifying things, sure, but the overall point stands.

 

I listened to the Gatehouse conference call.

The reason this merger is so problematic is that the combined companies receive over 30% of their revenue from hard copy advertising. The CEO of Gatehouse said that he anticipated print advertising to decline by 50% over the next three years. But that revenues of the companies, which declined at about eight percent in the most recent quarter, would only decline, on average, about two percent a year.

Why. Because the combined companies would grow their electronic publishing revenues enough to fill the gap. Why the combined companies would be able to become almost instantly turn into a digital powerhouse after the last decade of miserable failure went unexplained.

 

Of course it went unexplained.

 

The deal is supposed to be finalized Nov. 19. So I figure the layoffs will start between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15. Happy holidays to all.

 

Hate to say we've heard this story before about growing digital, but ...

 

The industry has been trying for what - 25, 30 years - to make digital advertising profitable? Without sustained success. Now, all of a sudden, we're going to snap our fingers and it's going to work?

 

Can't find it right now, but there was a Poynter story going around yesterday that said layoffs of 5 to 10 percent are expected to come next week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

They didn’t explain it because they’re being quite secretive with their Real Life, Real News 2020 Information Center Newsroom Of the Future initiative that’s going to be the game changer for the industry.

 

Oh. Boy.

 

Just a reminder to folks in those newsrooms - take a moment and save everything you might want to take with you now. Make copies of stuff, contacts etc., stories you might be working on, might want to declutter the desk. I'm sure there is a checklist out there for journos facing layoffs (knowing what your health insurance does and doesn't do, retirement) - the time to be asking yourself these questions is now.

 

Our local Gannett pub is down to 17 editorial staffers total (I worked there in my career infancy and sports alone had nine not counting part-timers and stringers), doesn't operate past 6 p.m. or on the weekends (some sports with online stuff the exception), and most stories are mostly press release rehash that aren't more than four graphs long. Of course they still beg for that supporting of local journalism and online subscriptions.

If they cut any further I'm not sure how they have any kind of publication. But I guess that's the idea in the end.