Third Quarter Revenues for the Largest Publishers

[Doc Holliday]

We've reached the point where parents of engaged couples — or grandparents of new babies — don't read the paper themselves and don't care if announcements are listed there. They post the photo and info on Facebook.

Just one example of bread-and-butter local content that's gone away.

This is a good point. It's not just classifieds and the car ads or the real estate ads that are gone. It's had an impact on everything , some areas greater than others. But at some point, there will be nothing left to sustain newspapers.

 

[TexasVet]

I remember way, way, way back in the day when I was a kid, I always looked forward to the comics every day, especially on Sundays. There used to be something for everyone in the local papers. But this was back when I could collect enough change on the ground to buy me a coke, candy bar and pack of baseball cards. I would look at my new cards and peruse the box scores in the sports pages to see how they all did. Maybe that's how I wandered into this profession.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I remember way, way, way back in the day when I was a kid, I always looked forward to the comics every day, especially on Sundays. There used to be something for everyone in the local papers. But this was back when I could collect enough change on the ground to buy me a coke, candy bar and pack of baseball cards. I would look at my new cards and peruse the box scores in the sports pages to see how they all did. Maybe that's how I wandered into this profession.

Same here. The comics were what first drew me into reading papers. Then I discovered sports.

On Sunday mornings, I' d get the paper, then bring it up,to my parents,mono would read the news sections while I studied the weekly MLB baseball stats.

 

[playthrough]

Same here. The comics were what first drew me into reading papers. Then I discovered sports.

On Sunday mornings, I' d get the paper, then bring it up,to my parents,mono would read the news sections while I studied the weekly MLB baseball stats.

When I was in grade school, I'd copy those weekly stats for the players on my favorite uncle's fantasy team and mail them to him. I thought I was doing him a real service, haha.

 

[HanSenSE]

I think I got everyone beat. In grade school, we got a morning AND an afternoon paper.

 

[Fredrick]

This is a great thread. In regards to the original post, nothing is working right now. Is that correct? Nobody is subscribing for digital. Nobody is advertising in print or digital. These complanies are down 10 percent for this quarter? I disagree with some of your reasons on here for the decline of newspapers. But what's the result of the information in this thread? Are we closer to online only so they can fire half the staffs? If we all stay the course, what do your figures mean for layoffs in coming weeks? Will there be huge numbers of layoffs or not?
I won't give my take and theories in this thread as you know Fredrick does not believe this had to happen. I respect the takes in this thread though.

 

[Fredrick]

I have appointed myself as the security analyst for publishers for this board. Here are the third quarter results for the largest publicly held publishers. I try to use same store comparisons when available. What that means is that, for example, Gatehouse total sales increased year over year because they bought a bunch of papers but sales at the papers they owned for the entire period declined.

Gatehouse (a.k.a. New Media Investments -6.4%
McClatchey -9.4%
Gannett -9.4%
Tronc -6.6%
Lee -6.6%

Gannett generally leads in the amount of revenue lost per quarter. I wonder how close the Gannett CEO is to getting fired.

Gannett also said they had 312,000 digital only subscribers. I counted roughly 108 Gannett papers on Wikipedia. While many of these are small this includes some big markets and USA Today. So that works out to about 3,000 digital subscribers per paper. Tronc only has 273,000 digital subscribers (ex the New York Daily News) . Digital is not working in 2017 for these chains.

In the press releases I read managements congratulated themselves on their successful cost containment efforts. I am sure they will continue these efforts. I think we all realize the personal cost to many of you.

Hmmm. 3,000 digital subscribers. If a fella or gal could start his/her own website and get 3000 subscribers at 100 dollars a year that might work for some of the veterans out there like McGann.

 

[LanceyHoward]

Hmmm. 3,000 digital subscribers. If a fella or gal could start his/her own website and get 3000 subscribers at 100 dollars a year that might work for some of the veterans out there like McGann.

There is a guy in Pittsburgh who quit a job at a local paper to try to do this and I think he is still around so I guess he is doing OK.

As for your idea I think this is what the Athletic hopes to do. I see your point about somebody like McGinn being able to pull this off. But I think this works better on a national level. Let's say someone decided to cover the heck out of NFL. They hire two writers for each of the 32 teams. They hire a couple of national guys and a draft guy. They might have a staff of 75 writers and I don't know how many production people. But I think that could be done and a budget of 20 million a year. So if you charge $40 bucks and get 500,000 subscribers you can break even just on subscriptions and you would also get some advertising revenue.

I might not subscribe to it if it was team specific because I have a subscription to my local paper and they cover the local team and the paper covers them really well. But if I could easily access all 32 NFL teams coverage I would go for that. I know ESPN staffs every NFL team and the have some excellent reporters but they do not cover a team as comprehensively as a good local paper.

If Gannett was run by half-wit I think they would try this with USA Today. Gannett staffs at least six NFL teams and has a national staff so they could leverage that staff. But I do not think the Gannett CEO has that much wit.

 

[LanceyHoward]

This is a great thread. In regards to the original post, nothing is working right now. Is that correct? Nobody is subscribing for digital. Nobody is advertising in print or digital. These complanies are down 10 percent for this quarter? I disagree with some of your reasons on here for the decline of newspapers. But what's the result of the information in this thread? Are we closer to online only so they can fire half the staffs? If we all stay the course, what do your figures mean for layoffs in coming weeks? Will there be huge numbers of layoffs or not?
I won't give my take and theories in this thread as you know Fredrick does not believe this had to happen. I respect the takes in this thread though.

As someone who is not in the industry but has never failed to have less than two newspaper subscriptions and is interested in the business side my prediction is this. Newspapers will consolidate on a regional basis. The publishers may keep the separate mastheads but the content will be largely the same. The papers in each town will fell like zoned editions. Basically what Singleton did in California. His company bought up a lot of decent papers and rolled them up.

I drove though Southern Virginia and North Carolina the Monday before Memorial day. I bought three papers owned by Warren Buffet, Lynchburg, Danville and Greensboro. I counted eight local bylines in the three papers. The advertisers were pretty much the same. I bet that those papers are printed in the same plant (how many papers are not printed in a combined facility already?). If the papers are being printed in the same place and local content is minimal the pressures to cut costs will lead to papers.

And if you are a company like McClatchy in North Carolina or Gannett in Tenesse just run one sports section for the entire state. Give up the ghost of providing local coverage for preps and small colleges. If that happens lots of blood will flow.

 

[steveu]

Don't know if this has been mentioned in any of the threads, but USA TODAY had its pages trimmed at the same time the new, sparser look broke out. Now papers are a minimum of 24 pages, although today's was 30.

Sometimes I wonder why they even try.

 

[LanceyHoward]

Don't know if this has been mentioned in any of the threads, but USA TODAY had its pages trimmed at the same time the new, sparser look broke out. Now papers are a minimum of 24 pages, although today's was 30.

Sometimes I wonder why they even try.

What is a rough estimate of their pages of ads. I am shocked USA Today still prints, given their reliance on heavily discounted subscriptions.

 

[TexasVet]

What is a rough estimate of their pages of ads. I am shocked USA Today still prints, given their reliance on heavily discounted subscriptions.

On the low-end (which I assume) is 50-55% ads in the paper ... 70-75% on the high end. They need those ratios to stay profitable.