Yet more layoffs in Tampa

I am actually surprised that the Tampa paper remained open. I listened to the latest conference call. I have never heard a management treated with such disrespect by analysts.

Key points:

1. Only a million in profits from on-line. An analyst asked how MG could have an on-line product for ten years and only clear a million.

2. Newspapers for the company only making 25M a year. Florida specifically cited as a problem spot.

3. Company has to refinance 300M or so of bank debt by Q1/2013. If the company does not refinance by Q1/2012 then the debt will be classified as a current liability and the auditors will issue a statement that have the firm may not survive as a going entity, which is a bad thing for the stock.

It may get worse.

 

It will get worse, since it's MG. But not for the suits who made the decisions that helped put the paper in such a hole. Only for the worker bees.

 

They're leveraged to the hilt. There's no "may" about it, I'm afraid. After years of corporate ineptitude, the front-line employees are paying the price and will continue doing so until the doors finally shut. Which surely will happen after a couple more ugly years.

To use a horribly disproportionate analogy, as with a nuclear bomb blast, I have a suspicion that the survivors of today's layoffs will soon come to envy the "dead" once the full scope of their new work environment becomes clear.

 

The third quarter press release said the Florida market lost 1.7 million. Either in the press release or conference call the operating profits of the television division for the company were reported as 19M. The Tampa television market represents 19% of the total households covered by Media General television stations. So if we assign 19% of the broadcast group's profits to the Tampa station, or 3.8M, that means the paper lost 5.5 million for the quarter. And 3.8M a quarter works out to about 15M a year, which sounds right for a television station in a top 15 market with strong local news ratings.

 

It's such a shame that a lot of great people got the phone call that I've gotten once before. That hurts.
Hate to hear that four were let go at Sebring. Unfortunate. But we all knew this day was coming.

 

I've received a list of names of newsroom employees who were dismissed yesterday.

The toll stands at 39 journalists -- with more layoffs promised in the first quarter of next year.

 

Promised? That's actually in the email, or are you making an educated guess?
In terms of the online leader, I'm wondering whether he was let go because of poor performance cited in LH's post rather than a decision to decimate that department.

 

I laughed when our boy Mizzou said in or around 2005 that half of the journalists would be out of a job in 2010.
I laughed when my sports editor at a our major metro joked that if we ever wanted to go back and work for a small paper, just hang tight and wait five years.
We can't reinvent ourselves fast enough.

 

I wonder if in 2005 I thought I would be one of them. I think that was about a year before I started waking up every day wondering if that was the day I was going to be let go.

That's a fun way to live.

 

I have read this thread and come to one conclusion, an awful one for the people still employed by the Tampa Tribune. I see no point in this newspaper as a consumer product anymore. Seven sports reporters for a major U.S. city daily? One preps guy? What information is this paper going to provide a reader they can't get elsewhere? If it's really losing close to $20 million a year, better to pull the plug than produce a product that tries to cheat its readers and advertisers.

 

It was stated in yesterday's announcement from MG.

"Most affected employees were notified today; however, certain positions will be reduced in the first quarter of 2012 for various business reasons. After all of the reductions are complete, approximately 675 employees will continue to work at the company’s print and online operations in Tampa. Approximately 300 employees are involved in content creation. Every Media General platform in Tampa has employees whose work benefits Tampa Tribune readers. The total reductions, including those made today and those to be made in the first quarter will total approximately 165, or about 16% of the total Tampa workforce across all platforms."

Regarding TBO's change at the top, my guess is that MG is cleaning house of all of its leaders to cleanly implement whatever tomfoolery it's going to implement. Last month, it blew out the Trib's publisher, WFLA-TV's station manager, and the president of MG Florida operations.

 

You want to see disrespect? Read this ... it's by a capital manager who really rakes MG's management over the coals ...

http://www.kinnaras.com/cblog/index.php?/archives/94-Media-General-This-Pig-Might-Fly.html