Results weak, GCI revamping Information Centers

Nearly two years after launching a radical change in how its newsrooms distribute information, new top Gannett executives are revamping the concept amid weak Web traffic growth, an alarming decline in revenues, and a plunging stock price.

The Information Center concept emphasized digital delivery over print, and was a cornerstone of CEO Craig Dubow's turnaround plan for the 84 U.S. community newspapers. But based on GCI's recent financial results, the closely watched experiment is failing its main mission: shoring up Web traffic and online ad sales.

Gannett has disclosed little about the scale or timetable for any changes to the model, which is still being applied to the 23-station TV division and the 17 daily papers in the U.K. Yet, details have started emerging in newsletters to employees, regulatory filings, internal documents, and in recent Gannett Blog comments. "Info Center 2.0," as one reader calls it, targets younger baby boomer demographics -- "which if you haven't been clued into yet, you will soon.''

Listening to 'fatbottoms drone'
Another reader wrote about an Information Center meeting Tuesday attended by the "high muckety-mucks" (though not Chief Digital Officer Chris Saridakis). "We're listening to the fatbottoms drone on endlessly,'' the reader wrote, apparently while still in the meeting. "Good thing we wasted a good portion of the day looking at screenshots we've seen eight times before, though. Very informative!"

Trying to tamp down such unrest, the company told employees late last month that any newsroom organizational changes wouldn't be dramatic. "These steps are more evolutionary than revolutionary,'' News Department chief Phil Currie (left) said in the June 26 edition of News Watch newsletter.

Currie's department played a big role in developing the Information Center idea, which directly affected about 5,000 newsroom employees -- or 11% of the workforce. But as one of its chief ambassadors, Currie is a font of disinformation -- since he long ago jettisoned journalism in favor of Marketing Speak. (See Pop Quiz, bottom of post.) For example, word for word from his News Watch piece, here's how Currie described the "next key steps" in whatever gets done with the newsrooms:

• Identifying and understanding vital audiences at locations across the company and delivering effective content to satisfy readers, digital users and advertisers.
• Engaging our audiences in ways that better connect our digital and print products with them -- and the audiences with us.
• Providing our audiences with more and better multi-platform public service journalism that will help distinguish our work from that of other media. Our audiences want effective watchdog work particularly in this time of turmoil at all levels of government and life. We will deliver it.

Huh? The first two are total gobbledygook. The third apparently refers to the internal findings of the Newspaper Division Print Task Force, which emphasized more hard news and watchdog journalism for the print newspapers, and their core baby boomer audience.

New management, weak financials
The Information Center strategy, and that task force report, were hatched under now-retired newspaper division president Sue Clark-Johnson. Her successor, Bob Dickey, is already putting his own stamp on the division, dramatically reshaping top leadership, and inevitably raising questions about the Information Center's future.

Dickey, 50 (left), has no time to waste, given Gannett's deteriorating position. Second-quarter net income plunged 36% from a year ago, to $233 million, on an unexpectedly bigger drop in ad revenues. That was a far worse performance than the second quarter of 2006, just before the Information Center was introduced. Net income that quarter fell just 8.3% from the year before, to $310.5 million.

What's more, Web traffic growth has been anemic, and penetration has been flat, GCI's monthly statistical summaries show. Last month, Gannett recorded a combined 23,076,000 unique visitors on its U.S. websites, including USA Today's. That was 14.1% of the Internet audience. In June 2006, just before the Information Center was rolled out, GCI had 22,238,000 such visitors -- 14.2% of all.

Meanwhile, online ad revenue growth rates at the domestic community dailies are apparently now so dismal, Gannett no longer publishes them. No wonder investors are losing patience: The company's stock is now trading around $18 a share -- down more than 60% from the second quarter of 2006.

Earlier: At Gannett headquarters, the band plays on

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

Pop Quiz: Phil Currie or oil industry flack?
Someone wrote the following: "In troubling times in our industry, we are not about to retreat. We continue to march forward, counting on getting closer to the people who count on us. And we are saying, 'Yes, [                ] does matter, and it remains a must."

(No-duh answer, here.)

[Image: this morning's Florida Today, Newseum; Today was one of the original 11 test sites for the Information Center]