Can't find the right spot for your comment? Post it here, in this open forum. Real Time Comments: parked here, 24/7. (Earlier editions.)
Saturday, August 10, 2013
42 comments:
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."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
*head throbbing*
ReplyDeleteI've now spent four hours reading Gannett's new 36-page 10-Q report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and updating a spreadsheet on trends in the company's digital revenue growth over the past four years.
The digital revenue stuff is pretty interesting, and I hope to post something soon.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteSee all, this is why this blog is great. Jim knows how to cover business. How many of us would take the time to pour over a boring SEC filing? Gannett would never release this info in a manner that the average would reader would understand.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteDid BJ in the statehouse bureau at the APP get canned?
ReplyDeleteYes, he was among the layoffs.
DeleteBack to the layoffs for a second..how can it be in Wausau they whack a 20-plus year employee, but are still advertising for a business writer? Yeah, there is a job I'd jump out. So glad to be out of that poorly run, citywide laughingstock of a media outlet run by perhaps the worst GM in the company's history....
ReplyDeleteJim, I'm assuming that the litigants fighting this deal regardless of the outcome will prove very costly for Gannett and Belo. There certainly is a lot on the line for Gracia and anyone else retiring from the board, in the near future.If the deal doesn't go through, their stock options are sure to take a beating. Weren't they once bragging about, not needing any supermen to close a deal? I'm sure the recent people that were laid off are rooting for Gracia and the team? ( Not ) Time to sell this stock while the going is good !
ReplyDeleteIt has painfully obvious for a decade now that this company is incapable of growth, other than by using the spare cash from raise freezes, pension freezes, furloughs and layoffs to buy companies and create the pretense of growth. This has been the theme under three CEOs now. It doesn't matter who steers the ship, the ship is sinking, and the only way to save it is by breaking it up and selling the parts. For those skeptics who wonder who would buy Gannett's newspapers, look no further than the developments of last week. To find buyers, Gannett must first put the papers up for sale.
ReplyDeleteJust curious, who are the likely buyers for major Gannett papers like USAT, Detroit, Indy, Phoenix,and Cincinnati?
DeleteRich investors of the Koch crowd might kick the tires in Phoenix. But I don't see any buyers for the others. And Gannett would have to pay someone to take Detroit.
DeleteAny multi-millionaire, especially one with an ego, is a potential buyer of a newspaper. The prices in Indy, Rochester, Detroit, Louisville, Cincinnati, et al would be low enough that it wouldn't take a member of the Forbes 400 to buy. As in Philadelphia, the buyer could be a group of well-off people who have the community's interests at heart.
Deletethat sounds like the publisher at Brevard...
DeleteThe people who bought the Philadelphia papers have one thing in mind, their wallets. Coommunity interest? What planet are you from 4:36?
DeleteThere might be buyers in those cities, 4:36, if Gannett agreed to keep the pension obligations on its books. That's how the New York Times Co. managed to unload The Boston Globe.
DeleteWake up! The local daily newspaper business is OVER. Nobody's going to offer Gannett more cash than it can continue to collect from its milk herd till the poor dears finally give out. Them's the cold hard fiduciary facts of the matter.
DeleteAgree that the company has no real growth strategy. The company has become too big. Time to sell it off, paper by paper, TV station by TV station. Gannett leadership has proven it has no effective answers. Layoffs and furloughs only delay the company's inevitable closing.
ReplyDeleteThe company might consider spinning off the newspapers into a separate company, as Tribune is doing and News Corp. already has done.
DeleteBut it's not selling any TV stations. Indeed, as the Belo deal shows, GCI is buying stations because for now, at any rate, their advertising revenue grows, however unevenly.
watch for the sell off of GPS division.
ReplyDeleteThis column by Rick Edmonds is primarily about the Washington Post sale, but contains a good point about how the era of publicly-traded news companies is winding down. Gannett is mentioned:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog/220158/the-posts-sale-7-thoughts-on-a-week-that-shook-the-newspaper-industry/
Thanks for pointing that out; it's one of Edmonds' best posts.
DeleteI've posted highlights here.
I don't care what Gannett does. They will always be known as the company that helped bring down the Newspaper. Some of the local papers would still be the place to get news in many of their local markets if it wasn't for Gannett taking their profits and throwing them into money losing papers, internet companies, and broadcast stations.
ReplyDeleteOh please!!! Why do the drama queens like you say crap like this. Steve Jobs killed the newspaper business. Technology killed the newspaper business. No one under 50 buys a newspaper anymore. You all act like folks would be running to pick up papers if the newsrooms were triple the size. BS. Enough with this silliness. Grow up. He'll, I bet YOU don't subscribe to any newspapers. When I worked in the business I'd crack up when the "journalists" would say, "why subscribe when I can get the paper for free at work." I also lived when those same folks would say, " I don't give to the United Way because I give charity elsewhere." Yea right
DeleteLocal newspapers could stand on their own in most areas, but it would require a commitment from the owner(s) and whoever is in the wheel house.
DeleteThose commitments does not exist under the Gannett flag (Jolly Roger?). Gannett isn't in the business of providing news or entertainment. Gannett is in this to make money for the share holders, and everything else is unimportant.
The problem that the local papers face are many fold, but most of all the fact that all revenue is being sent to the mother ship, and then they decide how much goes back as budget for the local paper to work with.
Fact is, that corporate does not make any money, not a dime, nada, but still carry the highest salaries and benefits for those employed under the corporate umbrella.
What is also responsible for sinking the ship is the brain dead ideas and implements being forced down the chain of command, and using the "one size fits all" formula. What works in AZ may not work NJ, but that is a fact largely ignored by the powers that be.
It is true and unavoidable, that readers have left in drones, and at my site we have lost more than 50% of our subscribers over the last 10+ years, but it isn't the end for the local rag. Some local papers would go under without the support from Gannett, and that shouldn't be prevented at the cost of other more profitable papers.
Any notion of Gannett doing "the right thing", which is to sell off the local papers and let them prosper on their own terms, should be dismissed, because that would mean no need for our Supreme Leaders in the Crystal Palace. They would rather cut off their nose to spite their face, than doing anything to save just one of the local papers. They would rather go down with the ship, and let the chips fall where they may...
Please list the non Gannett local community newspapers that utilize your business model and are setting the world in fire and prospering while others are going down the tubes. Ten should be enough. There are probably plenty so only list papers where circulation grew 10 percent in the last three years and advertising revenues grew one percent year over year for each of those three years. Oh, and limit the list to the papers that didn't have any layoffs during that same period. Thanks
DeleteI am not privy to financial for any other paper than the one I work for, and I know for a fact, that we have "donated" more money, than we received back, and still we are in the black. And no, I will not divulge which property I work for!
DeleteThe layoff comment is just juvenile, so grow up please!
So you gave a great speech but have zero examples of even one site that employees your business model and increased revenues and circulation. I think I made my point.
DeleteDude all Gannett sites are in "the nlack" that's not the goal of a publicly traded company.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteDebates that rely on sniping and sarcasim get removed.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteCorrect spelling: sarcasm.
DeleteGCI's papers may bring in the most revenue, but at the highest cost. Broadcast is the PROFIT generator for GCI and we deserve to be spun off as a stand alone Broadcast company.
ReplyDeleteDave Lougee would be its CEO, over not only TV but all the digital properties.
DeleteBob Dickey might be CEO of a spun off newspaper division.
And Gracia Martore would be out of a job.
Don't the Newspapers also generate the most net income after expenses for Gannett?
DeleteI'd wager 90 to 95% of the posts here are from newspaper folks. Digital and Broadcast folks get it and are moving forward. I get why newspaper folks whine: Thete isn't ANYTHING positive on the horizon. Jim may e YOU should spin off your blog so it focuses on newspaper folks 24/7
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHow can you say it's separate? It's all integrated for the last 10 years - . Sale people sell print and online together, reporters stories go in print and online - finance collects money from digital and print ads broadcast is also online - so how is it not all the same? It's Gannett that is the problem and their management - NOT the "Print" vs digital vs broadcast.
ReplyDeleteTallahassee Democrat staff writer Elizabeth Mack was arrested early Thursday morning on charges of trespassing and resisting an officer following a disturbance at Hotel Duval’s Level 8 Lounge, according to the newspaper.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteWith traditional journalism in decline everywhere, it is heartening to hear about a young reporter upholding the profession's oldest and proudest traditions.
Delete