Earnings more than doubled during the quarter, the company said in a statement, but revenue fell 1.6% to $1.37 billion vs. a forecast $1.4 billion. GCI dragged down other newspaper stocks, which got pounded amid a dizzying swoon in the overall stock market.The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 261 points, or 2.5%, to 10,098. The S&P 500 index, which tracks a broader array of shares, closed down 32 points, or 2.9%.
Aahhhh yessss!
ReplyDeleteDeptartment of Ouch! Today's decline cost CEO Craig Dubow $805,000 in paper profits on 500,000 stock options awarded to him last year.
ReplyDeleteContext: The S&P 500 lost 2.9 percent Friday, an extremely large one-day percentage move for that index, which is the index most watched by professional traders and other savvy stock market folk. In plain English, it was a horses*** day for the market overall. Had GCI announced profits Tuesday, the stock would have closed above $16. GCI selling for five times earnings is stupid-cheap. Eventually, Mr. Market corrects all price inefficiencies. You may rest assured that Mr. Dubow knows this.
ReplyDeleteThe declining revenues tell the story, and they are now the most difficult issues for corporate to deal with. They can increase profits easily by cutting more staff, but that eventually cuts into revenue, which is what is happening. I don't see any bright ideas that are going to reverse this.
ReplyDeleteSo glad gannett announced the long awaited Yahoo "deal" the same day they released their earnings and the market tumbled. Looks like the Investors thought this was a lame ass deal for Gannett.
ReplyDeleteIt is always good for a low level tech company like Gannett to link up with a loser in the media space. Maybe a link up with Google would have been better than with Yahoo.
8:52, Google tried to link up with Gannett three years ago by offering their online accounts space in newspapers at dirt cheap cost per thousand reader rates. It was a total mess. Gannett's billing and fulfillment was a headache for Google. Google really just wanted a peak into operations to see if newspapers were worth an investment. Google has the brightest talent in business. So what do you think Google not having a partnership with Gannett says about the newspaper industry???
ReplyDeleteThe morale of this story: greed is good on Wall Street, greed and stupidity is not.
ReplyDeleteDubow won't sweat the loss, Jim. Gannett will just add $805K to his bonus next year.
ReplyDeleteTold y'all that Broadcast was going to report a great quarter! The Digital results were an unexpected and pleasant surprise. Management has reduced the bleeding at Print but more needs to be done on that side of the house.
ReplyDeleteBroadcast is having a good year because of political and expense cuts. Print no longer gets large political but their southeast papers did get a BP bailout. Revenue will look decent through the 4th quarter. Then, get ready for uglyville 1st quarter of 2011 if economy is still treading water. Because if you haven't noticed by now, advertising revenue ebbs and flows with the retail economy. Management does little more than rock the boat.
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