Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI)

All Comments on GCI

  • commenter
    notsosmart
    Sep 06 04:25 PM
    My Website
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    getting rid of the neighborhood delivery teen did not help. Reply
  • commenter
    notsosmart
    Sep 06 04:15 PM
    My Website
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    testing Reply
  • commenter
    Relayer10
    Sep 06 03:47 PM
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    As a 20 plus year veteran of the Newspaper industry...as an Advertising Management professional (Daily and Weekly, Shoppers, Family Owned, and Corporate Owned) I have an insiders opinion.

    Newspaper revenues have been self inflicted wounds. Family owned newspapers in smaller markets are in much better shape than newspapers in markets owned by corporations or large groups. Many of the problems can be repaired, or at least the declines arrested.

    The main issues can be laid at the feet of top executives and publishers. Therefore, the problems can be corrected by examining them, and probably removing most of them.

    The problem....lack of long term vision, and the wrong skill set to correct them. Corporate newspapers have valued only the immediate months' Operating Profit, and designed compensation programs accordingly. Corporate directors receive bonus payments based on either annual or divisional factors. This system has focused on the very short term performance financially.

    Virtually no focus is placed on the fundamentals of the business. Adding to this, high level managers at the local and corporate level have changed in professional fields of expertise. Over the past 10 years, most local publishers and higher corporate types are now financial managers- accountants- not Editors, Advertising, or Circulation types. Think of that for a moment, and you can begin to see a large part of the long term problem.

    Newspapers have traditionally attracted people interested in reading news that is important to them. Advertising was strong, because local advertisers could rely on both strong readership of their ads, and affordable ad rates that reflected return on investment. Both have been seriously eroded, and may be too late to correct.

    Readership has been eroded, because senior management directed focus on short term bonus' for themselves. Examples...the refusal to invest resources and time for local Circulation managers to build home delivery services of newspapers. Instead, a practice of artificially "puffing" circulation is the focus. Almost all newspapers now have NIE departments (Newspaper In Education). Sounds good on the surface, however, the main reason the departments exist, and the main responsibility, is getting large bulk sales to schools paid for by businesses. That is then called "paid circulation" and reported as such to the ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation). Another practice is to "wrap" a newspaper with a "jacket" of newsprint with ads on it. That "jacket" is paid for by advertisers, then dropped at hotels etc, perhaps at major league sporting events or concerts. Then, that entire pressrun is counted as "paid" as well. Using a newspaper to help reading programs is not really the circulation Advertisers are counting on. Nor is a free newspaper at the hotel desk. Home delivery is the most important, with paid single copy sales next.

    The problem? Real newspaper circulation is far less than stated. The consequence is that ads don't reach real readers, and ads don't work as well as in the past. This "puffed" circulation is the basis that ad rates are sold to advertisers.

    Why does this matter? Many publishers receive bonus based on circulation increases, not the type of circulation. Ad rates have also faced similar issues. Circulation goes down, ad rates go up, and results for those advertisers go down as well. In the online area, Publishers refuse to re think the model. Classified ad rates were raised artificially and forced online, with no infra structure to give that online ad a chance to work. It was done simply to add revenue. Results for the customer were not considered. That inflated price gave rise to Craigslist, Monster, and many others that have eroded Classified ads.

    Display advertising is no different. Less real circulation, yet higher rate. What other industry does that? Give you less, but charge you more. Very poor execution of the online revenue model. Many publishers try to count online pageviews as extra circuation. Marginally true, but the print advertiser gets NO benefit of it, and the online only advertiser gets no benefit from the print. So, not completely accurate to "spin" online pageviews as circulation to advertisers

    In the newsroom, the head counts have been drastically slashed. The only reason anyone even buys a newspaper is to read the news. The problem is not so much the cuts, as WHO has been cut, or quit. The more tenured and experienced the newsperson, the more likely they are to be be gone from today's newsroom.

    At some point, there will be an executive in one of the companies that will state the obvious, and make some bold decisions. If the CEO does not fire them immediately, the changes needed will be done, and the newspaper industry will recover in some form. Until then, the death spiral will continue. The market will crush many of them, and only a few will survive. Local family owned newspapers have a better chance of survival, because they tend to make better long term decisions.

    Think of it this way...an NFL team cuts it's best quarterback, running backs, line, and defense, but KEEPS the rookies and third stringers! Then expects the team to win the Superbowl, and expects you to pay the full ticket price to watch em! Then, the executive is surprised by an empty stadium!!
     Reply
  • commenter
    notsosmart
    Sep 06 12:01 PM
    My Website
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    it can be true even if we dont like it. newspapers can go the way of the buggywhip.most kids that i know are not interested in the news,nevermind the newspaper.in my day,last century,most kids at least read the paper for the cartoons.there is no future for print with most of todays kids & they are the future.the world will survive. Reply
  • commenter
    mollytjm
    Sep 06 11:22 AM
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    this and also telephone book ad decline is just as steep and t.v. news ads are way down. tech is changing everything and it's not an advertising recession when it comes to some of this. newspapers will not recover substantially nor will the phone books or t.v. news.
    the only spot left is the web and the recession IS the impact there.     Reply
  • commenter
    rgw
    Sep 05 01:56 PM
    My Website
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    I maintain models of (NAA) ad expenditures trends and I must say I was totally surprised by the Q2 results for online. The $777 million is in the zero percentile in a one period ahead series. I was forecasting the 2008 aggregate expenditure to be $39.4 bilion and 2009 to be $34.6 billion. It's going to be worse than that. Additionally, for some time now, newspaper ad exps have been disconnected from macroeconomic indicators. These recent trends are not cyclical. Reply
  • commenter
    jeanperry
    Sep 05 12:49 PM
    Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
    Amazing decline. Do you have a sense of the breakdown in online between classified and display? I see a ton of display inventory flowing through main pages on newspaper sites, which continue to be healthy, so is classified the culprit, or are the ad rates driving down on display? Reply
  • commenter
    Dividend
    Growth
    Investor
    Sep 03 09:32 AM
    My Website
    Dividend Aristocrats Handily Outperforming Main Indexes in 2008 [view article]
    Great resource David!
    It's great to see that dividends are cushioning the losses for investors this year. To everyone else who believes that this is a short term phenomenon, please check this link out:

    dividendgrowth.blogspo...     Reply
  • commenter
    sbenard
    Sep 01 08:18 PM
    My Website
    Dividend Aristocrats Handily Outperforming Main Indexes in 2008 [view article]
    I always get a kick in the pants from people who say that index XYZ performed BETTER than the market, when in reality, they just lost LESS! Reply
  • commenter
    jay
    fredrickson
    Sep 01 02:16 PM
    My Website
    Am I Crazy to Own Gannett? [view article]
    Gannett stock is a screaming buy here and was even better a few weeks ago at $15 per share. This company has a nice mix of large papers, small papers, and mid-sized papers in addition to profitable tv stations. The whole segment of publiishers has been washed out in the last six months, but this company will survive and should have a stock price of $35 within three years.

    Jay Fredrickson

    washingtoncheap.com     Reply
  • commenter
    jay
    fredrickson
    Sep 01 02:00 PM
    My Website
    Newspaper Stocks: New York Times Company, Gannett and McClatchy [view article]
    I think Gannett is undervalued due to their tv staions, overseas operations, and national branding opportunities with USA Today. This company also owns a lot of tv stations and should be able to max revenue from those stations once the economy bounces back. I also think they are in a good position relative to others in newspapers, like Mcclatchy, New York Times, and Tribune, and may be able to buy some choice titles as those companies start shedding assets to pay off their huge debt not able to be served by future cash flows.

    Jay Fredrickson

    I-10west.com     Reply
  • commenter
    Jake2
    Aug 31 04:48 PM
    My Website
    Dividend Aristocrats Handily Outperforming Main Indexes in 2008 [view article]
    A non-starter. Reply
  • commenter
    woodsey
    Aug 31 03:34 PM
    Dividend Aristocrats Handily Outperforming Main Indexes in 2008 [view article]
    Cherry picked. Reply
  • commenter
    John Galt
    Aug 31 03:25 PM
    Dividend Aristocrats Handily Outperforming Main Indexes in 2008 [view article]
    Good resource!! Reply
  • commenter
    cos10000
    Aug 27 06:32 PM
    Newspaper Stocks: New York Times Company, Gannett and McClatchy [view article]
    This author seems confused. She bills herself as a Silicon Valley-based corporate strategist. However, her piece seems to ignore the limitations of newspapers' online business.

    She neglects to mention that despite impressive percentage revenue growth online, that growth is decelerating, and is occurring off a small base. In other words, gains online are not keeping pace with losses in print ad revenue.

    The author further neglects to mention that McClatchy may be cutting its dividend by the end of the year if not sooner, so it will free up cash to service its $2.1 billion in long term debt from its poorly-timed Knight Ridder acquisition. Interest expense alone has consumed 80% of McClatchy's operating income so far in 2008.

    McClatchy has been scrambling to cut costs - including an outsourcing initiative to a firm in India. It also just offered buyouts to a large number of employees at the Sacramento Bee.

    McClatchy and other publishers may be establishing a separate, independent business from their print product, but that business is not growing quickly enough - or profitably enough - to support the high fixed costs associated with the current print infrastructure. Profitability continues to decline, and advertisers will not pay up for the same ad online that they purchased in print.

    Where was all this mentioned in the author's article?
    Reply
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