What happened:
Gannett spent $1.8 billion buying back shares from 2005 through last year's third quarter. Corporate thought Wall Street was undervaluing the stock, a gambit that proved disastrous. Those shares are now worth only $82.3 million, based on today's closing price: $2.92.
Fantasy do-over:
Invest that treasure in online news start-ups in the more than 100 communities, now losing newspapers and TV stations amid Gannett's rapid retrenchment. Those media business seedlings might have formed a prosperous future for the company.
Now, it's your turn. Please post your fantasy do-over in the comments section, below. E-mail confidentially, via gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy, green sidebar.
What happened:
ReplyDeleteGannett consolidated circulation customer service operations to call centers--the Center of Excellance. These COEs were overwhelmed with phone calls, have poorly trained reps, must deal with 40+ rate matrixes.
Fantasy do-over:
If this COE plan must happen:
Get the properties somewhat standardized in rates. Make all rates the same (or at least create a MAXIMUM of four different rate schedules)
Bring back the IDEA of 180, if all the properties are using the same creative, this will create continuity for the COE.
Standardize policies: how many days of grace, delivery times.
Have ONE person at each COE in charge of contacting local staff.
NOT that I'm a fan (AT ALL!!) of the COE, but if we have to do it that way, at least do it right.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteYour picture makes you look like a straight man. This is not you!
Get those homo glasses back on.
Fantasy do-over:
ReplyDelete1. Take GNS and make it into a national wire, sold to other non-GCI papers. Sell local non-GCI full page layout copy, leaving the local paper the opportunity just to sell the ads to fill it. Stop regarding competitors as enemies, and treat them instead as milk cows from which to draw steady streams of revenue.
2. Launch a cartoon and features service, available also to non GCI-papers, and pay for the best cartoonists and features on the market. The sales of these features and cartoons is not the aim, but rather the licensing fees that come from selling very lucrative merchandizing rights.
3. Start up a must-read GCI version of the Drudgereport. Ok, Drudge's day has now passed, but in its day he was very innovative. Ideas like that should have been stolen.
4. In the early days, buy into Yahoo or Google, and dominate their business strategy. Again not to stifle them as a competitor, but to use them as a way of expanding GCI's news empire.
5. In non-GCI markets, launch free daily newspapers and shoppers. There is a lot of unused press time that could have been utilized, given a little investment.
hmmm, I do not want to gainsay you, Mr. Gannettblog (which is a great blog.)
ReplyDeletebut...seeding multi-media startups might be a fantasy in itself. I see that tis appealing and a better use of the money than the stock buyback. of course it would have been better.
but note: the excellent fake steve jobs blog, which drew a large prosperous readership, was unable to make a go of it and made as little as $1,000 during top months. the founder has stepped off to do other things. the blog got millions of hits and offered up scoop after scoop.
the issue is that the sustainable "content" ad dollars are going to online - AND they are going to orgs. that do not produce news. they aggregate or appropriate. of course if google etc. gets most of the ad money and investment money (via stock purchase) they will look powerful and unbreakable. and that might be OK.
what IS NOT OK is that the valuable news content they link to is paid for elsewhere. and they just take it. a second grader could see the problem here.
this isn't complicated. this is like me figuring out how to sell my neighbor's house and keep the dough.
the news orgs. are the hapless neighbors here. maybe we can't support a paid content platform but we are giving it away - and here is the key - to people who then resell/repackage it and MAKE PLENTY.
so we are stalled - we don't put up pay walls of subscription due to fear people won't buy in. but we have no real way to stop the smarter online producers from just taking our output - robbing us blind. meanwhile the train is headed toward a wall at 80 MPH. I give the system five years, tops.
someone stop this. and wait, there is more. the aggregators have a subtle PR campaign that MSM (which they stripmine) is old, outdated, behind the times, for seniors, etc.
so now I make money from my neighbors house but I also trash my neighbor in memorable ways so he is hobbled going forward. and with me holding his purse strings while he goes broke.
it is insane. in five years what will be left - downturn or no downturn. the model is broken.
exhorting me to be creative, think outside the box, get digital skills or take flash classes and shoot video misses the point. that just gilds the lilly I am helpless to watch someone steal.
Instead of a do over, DeBLOW, needs to contact Gary Dahl and ask him what he did after the Pet Rock. Newspapers are as good as Pet Rocks. Nice Fade but over
ReplyDeleteThe principal that Gannett's owes, on the loans, that they took out to buy back their stock, is still the same. I not even including the interest debt, on those loans.
ReplyDelete