I'm picking up speculation that Gannett may be stalking some or all of Journal Register Co., the troubled newspaper chain whose flagship is the New Haven Register. The company's stock collapsed this week after The New York Times reported concerns the company may be headed for bankruptcy court. Monday, JRC said it had hired investment bank Lazard as an adviser.
JRC is headquartered near Trenton, N.J. It owns 22 dailies, with approximately 559,000 total circulation. The company also owns 346 non-daily publications, with total distribution of more than 6 million, as well as commercial printing and software development companies.
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Thursday, April 10, 2008
8 comments:
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Dumb move if you ask me. I don't know how much more consolidation these co's can do to save costs. Gannett would be better off paying a premium for a growth acquisition than a cut-rate price for a sick business.
ReplyDeleteDitto. I worked for them and they have little to no strength. No marketing focus and no bench. Their former CEO makes Dubow look like a hero. And loaded with shoppers and other non-paid publications. TMC's were always an excuse by dailies to make up for their short-comings. Gannett would be better served by paying off debt and cutting corporate waste. JRC...it stands for "just real cheap." Just ask one of their employees.
ReplyDeleteGannett's too smart to buy more newspapers. That's why they didn't pick up much during the Knight Ridder fire sale, tempting though it must have been. The future is not newspapers, although future companies-formerly-known-as-newspaper-publishers will probably do reasonably well on the Web since local content is so expensive for competitors to replicate, future historians will footnote.
ReplyDeleteHaving just recently left JRC, I will echo the sentiments here. Gannett is much too smart to buy a company that has zero potential. They would pay $800 million-plus for the company and then need to invest another $300 million -- minimum -- to get the properties into any kind of working order. JRC neglected its properties, infrastructure and equipment for so long that it makes the company even less valuable than it already is. Thank you Bob Jelnick, Al Mailman, Julie Beck and all the other angels of death that have worked in Yardley and Trenton before.
ReplyDeleteHere's another possible obstacle to Gannett buying all of the Journal-Register Co.: The Journal- Register Co. owns many small papers in Detroit's suburbs. Gannett already owns the Detroit Free Press, 90 percent of the company that produces the Free Press and the Detroit News, and a chain of suburban papers under the banner of Hometown Newspapers. If it bought the Journal-Register, Gannett would basically own nearly every paper of any size in Metro Detroit except for the Macomb Daily and the Grosse Pointe paper. Wouldn't this scenario raise anti-trust issues with the Justice Department? Or would Gannett sell some of its other properties in Metro Detroit (turning over the Detroit Media Partnership to Singleton) to buy the Journal Register?
ReplyDeleteSome JRC papers have already been groomed for acquisition with sudden updates that employees have called "pimpings"
ReplyDeletePimp my ride? Pimp my newspaper by suddenly flipping on longtime employee requests for new computers (cheap, but new) in order to make prospective buyers think they're into a new world.
Our JRC paper suddenly has done some cosmetic upgrades to advertising staff capabilities while slashing editorial staff yet further.
We know that advertising staff catches the money required for profits, but editorial employees actually produce the news that is the value (the gosh-darn draw for people to come to the product)
Open your eyes, slow-moving old-school grunts, working with the creative types within your papers will lift your profits.
Listen to the prophets or wither like former dart league sports editors.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
If Gannett were interested, it’s likely the hurdles would be lowered in Detroit as the argument would be that the dynamics have changed, and given the growth of the internet, everyone is a competitor.
ReplyDeletePlus, if recent history is any guide, the Justice Department, after a lengthy review a few years ago, allowed Gannett to keep 27 weekly newspapers in tact in Cincinnati when they acquired Hometown…despite strong concerns from some large advertisers. What’s happened since there: fewer print competitors, significantly higher rates, distribution cuts and a continued effort to merge news coverage that will ultimately leave Cincinnatian’s with one voice of note – Gannett’s.
Jelnick squeezed every available dollar out of the operations. It was so bad that exposed wiring to the elements could have caused a fire...and needless to say that the flies in the bathroom "horse trough" were pretty bad. They have "some" of the worse publishers that could be counted.
ReplyDeleteI'd pass on every one of their locations...but Gatehouse might love them all.