Monday, February 04, 2013

Feb. 4-10 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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35 comments:

  1. Jim what happened to your layoff spreadsheet? Still stuck at 32 out of 100???

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    1. That's the most current information I have. I'll continue to update it should more numbers arrive.

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  2. No point in pushing for layoff data before Monday's conference call. Have to get up early in the West. 10am Eastern.

    Anybody want to take a whack at what's coming our way?

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    1. No matter what it is, it aint gonna be good!

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  3. You can bet your ass that there were more than 32 layoffs.
    They were just not reported to this site.
    People are either just chicken shit to post here or
    not nearly as many folks are tuning in this blog.
    Could be the latter. They would rather keep their heads in the sand and not be informed of when Gannett might put them on the unemployment rolls.
    Ignorance is bliss, they would rather not see the
    end coming rather than face it.

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    1. My readership and comment participation is skewed toward editorial. I receive fewer comments from, for example, production and distribution.

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    2. Your head is in the sand, 4:03. Same type of post, every day.

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  4. Brevard had 2 layoffs, an admin position with over 20 years of service, and 1, a management position, was given advanced walking papers for end of period 1, and got rehired (is that the right word?) by Florida Today in the Business Office.

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  5. USAT beat NYT and CNN on push alerts for the big game. Wonder how many execs were there in person? Cars.com ad was cheaply produced. What were your thoughts, haters? Everyone here is so poopy and mean and silly. Enjoy furloughs pooty heads.

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  6. LOVED the Paul Harvey - Chrysler ad. Magnificent.

    And the Mercedes "Deal with the Devil" ad was a hoot.

    Cars.com . . . meh. Movie within a movie. Probably done by a fan of "The French Lieutenant's Woman".

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  7. To bad GPS didn't let local management decide what the best way to run the paper before making them lay off good workers to hire outside of Company. Every site is different and has a different age demographic of readers.

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  8. Monday - Another day at the hellhole - Indy.

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  9. Such BS from the CEO about USAT Sports. It is a failure and she knows that Buesse will be gone by the end of this year.

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  10. Translation of CEO's comments: We're continuing to create efficiencies (cutting employees) and return value to shareholders (giving bigger dividends instead of investing in the business).

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    1. 10:18 that is what CEOs do. Take a business class. This is not a non profit agency.

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    2. Just a non-growth agency. If you pop up your seed corn and eat it all this year, ain't none to grow next year.

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  11. Went in and looked at my pension figures yesterday. The big question is how does my projected pension decrease when the plan is frozen? I will be contacting ERISA on this. The amount is only $7.00 less a month but someone needs to be held accountable for an accurate figure now that the pension is frozen. If I'm correct a cola was too be add to pension also. As per paper work I have: COST-OF-LIVING ADJUSTMENT "your frozen benefit will be increased by a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) each yer until your benefit payments commence". To me the frozen pension can only go up not down!
    On 4/5/2012 single life was $2,133 at 65
    On 2/3/2012 single life is $2,126 at 65

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  12. Another day and another article by USA TODAY's Michael Wolff in which he mentions Rupert Murdoch. The guy really has a little thing for old Rupe, doesn't he.

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    1. That's because Murdoch is one of the few people still aggressively buying print in this country. The old saying is that when times are tough you advertise MORE.

      People like Murdoch (and now Buffett) see the possibilities and ways to exploit them. The current Gannett leadership seems to be content to milk the cow until it's dry.

      It would be interesting to see an auction of USA Today. Who would bid? What would they pay?

      By most accounts, Murdoch severely overpaid for The Wall Street Journal. But look what he's done with it. Consider Murdoch's exploiting the WSJ brand with the languishing and decline of USAT. WSJ has been updated and expanded over many platforms. USAT replaced an iconic logo with a flat, boring circle that the most listless art school student wouldn't be caught dead doodling.

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    2. Charles Everett2/04/2013 4:57 PM

      News Corp. isn't buying newspapers, it's buying TV stations. Last week its Fox division announced it was buying two stations in Charlotte -- and would take the Fox network away from that city's longtime affiliate. Needless to say, people in Charlotte are very angry.

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    3. FOX moves in and out of TV stations as the situation demands. They sold a bunch of TV stations a few years ago to get cash for the WSJ acquisition. One of those stations was in North Carolina.

      Now FOX is back in Carolina. In a bigger market. The synergy here is that the Speed Channel (soon to be FOX Sports 1) is also in Charlotte. AND the NFL Panthers are in Charlotte. Those $20,000 spots on Sunday afternoons will help pay for the purchase. Which is a very reasonable (reported) $18 million.

      As for people being "angry" . . . they'll get over it, the way the rest of the country survived the Great Affiliate Swap of 1994.

      BTW . . . for you geezers who like Me-TV (and you gotta love a network that can put "The Odd Couple" on the week after Jack Klugman dies), FOX and the owner of Me-TV are creating another programming channel featuring FOX movies. Coming soon to a digital channel near you.

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  13. The financial reports are good and it's all about TV
    broadcast group.
    Print revenue is still down, although not in the tank as much as usual.
    And this was a 13 week quarter, so take away 8.5% of revenue over last year.

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    1. But it was also about a big gain in circulation revenue from the subscription rate increases tied to the paywalls.

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    2. Did they break out the increased revenue attributed to jacking the rate and the increase in revenue due to digital? I have a funny suspicion that the increased rate hikes in print subscription is making this whole thing look too rosy. I would like to know how the insane price hikes affected real circulation numbers. Remember that a large portion of the base is just loyal to a local paper and they will absorb large price hikes, while the margin drops off. This is not a recipe for growth; it is a monopolist extracting more money from the installed base at the expense of growth. Not good medium to long term.

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  14. Let's not forget that print revenue would also show a huge gain in political advertising as well.

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  15. No cause for celebration. Including one-time items, earnings came in at 44 cents a share compared with 49 cents in the comparable prior-year quarter.

    Believe me it will be more job cuts to cover that up. Gannett knows no other way to balance their books.

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  16. as for your pension "watch out". i retired last year and my pension dropped as well. I called and was told it was a mistake (how can it drop when its frozen). told it was fixed, got lump sum check and it was wrong, had to call and they sent a second check for the difference. keep an eye on them they will steal whatever they can from you. Also i'm the one who said sell stock when it hit $20, i did and happy. BIG drop today, will take a long time to go back up if it ever does.

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  17. Telling. The CEO doesn't say anything about USAT Sports at all in her presentation. What's she going to say? That the online geniuses running sports spent a ton of money to hire Joe Posnanski to be to their new Sports on Earth what Bill Simmons is to Grantland. So what happens. Old Joe takes their money, gives them zip, then runs off to NBC in less than a year. Nice going Joe. But SPORTS has egg on its face. Embarrassing.

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  18. First Day of the Lexington Herald Leader delivering the USA Today route I had for 5+ years in eastern KY-went out this morning around 8:00 AM to finalize collections at my old retail accounts, and not one box was serviced. The 11 boxes generated nearly $200 a week in revenue. Just as I thought, it doesn't matter anymore.

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  19. All the distribution General Managers at GPS got promotions to regional Managers. what they should have done instead is bring back the Single Copy Drivers, and the District Managers.

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    1. There are no distribution general managers. Haven't been since GPS was formed. Are you confused with production?

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    2. They should have just canned the creeps

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    3. Komidar should have been axed first

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  20. Acting director and former operations manager at Nashville design hub has now resigned.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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