Goodbye | After six-plus years, I'm calling it quits

I started publishing Gannett Blog in September 2007 as a virtual water cooler where employees could share information at a time of tremendous change across the news industry. I set just two conditions: that I have at least 500 daily readers, and that Gannett remain substantially the same company.

Today, I still have more than enough readers: This site averaged more than 15,000 unique monthly visitors last year, according to Google Analytics, an impressive number when you consider the company employs only about 30,000 people. Indeed, since launching, Gannett Blog has generated amazing traffic: 5.5 million visits and 13.4 million pageviews.

But with the purchase of 20-station TV company Belo in late December, Gannett is no longer the same company. Corporate projects broadcasting will eventually account for more than half of all earnings; throw in digital, and the figure is forecast to rise even higher. In other words, Gannett is now a TV giant with a side interest in newspapers, its mainstay business since 1906, when Frank Gannett founded the company with a single daily in Elmira, N.Y.

Gannett is also a much smaller enterprise. It has eliminated more than 20,000 jobs since the workforce peaked at 53,000 in 2003. Revenue fell to $5.2 billion last year vs. a record $8 billion in 2006. GCI shares trade for $28 vs. an all-time high of $90 in 2004.

And now Wall Street is raising pressure on Corporate to spin off the troubled newspaper division. I had much of this in mind in early December, when I wrote about Gannett's digital efforts in a lengthy post that also serves as a history of this blog.

There are other reasons for me to quit now. I turned 57 years old on Sunday, a turning point to pursue new adventures while saying goodbye to old ones.

I've thoroughly enjoyed publishing Gannett Blog -- so much so, I returned in late 2009 after taking a five-month break I initially thought would be permanent. This time, I won't change my mind.

What this means
You can continue posting comments through tonight, when I'll disable commenting for good. The site will remain available on a read-only basis as long as Google supports the Blogger software platform I use. There's plenty to read from the past six years: more than 7,000 posts and nearly 140,000 comments.

I'm no longer seeking gifts from readers. You've been tremendously generous over the years and for that I continue to be grateful. I will refund any contributions I've received since Jan. 1 where I have contact information for donors. (Readers with auto-renewing subscriptions should use the "Unsubscribe" link near the top of the green sidebar, right.)

Thank you.

Jim Hopkins
Publisher and Editor
San Francisco

I'm no longer accepting comments here or anywhere else on this site. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot.com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.

Feb. 10-14 | Your News & Comments: Part 5

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Feb. 10-14 | Your News & Comments: Part 4

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Feb. 10-14 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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Feb. 10-14 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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Feb. 10-14 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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Feb. 3-9 | Your News & Comments: Part 4

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CJR: 'Gannett’s print-focused paywalls flounder'

"The issue is one that will particularly affect newspapers like Gannett’s that have leaned on large print price increases as part of their paywall strategies," writes Ryan Chittum in a new Columbia Journalism Review story. "For lower-quality publishers like Gannett, which has squeezed profits out of its newspapers for decades, the paywall money has been in print, not digital."

Earlier: Fourth-quarter report hints at looming paywall problem.

Report: World Bank unit eyeing 400K of Tysons HQ

Corporate-USA Today complex reportedly under consideration.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development is shopping for 400,000 square feet to buy in the Washington area, and one site it's considering is the Crystal Palace complex that houses Corporate and USA Today, according to a new report by commercial real estate trade site Bisnow.

In turn, the site says, Gannett is looking for 200,000 square feet in Arlington, Va.

IBRD, part of the World Bank, would vacate three sites that it's currently leasing, according to Bisnow, which didn't provide any sources for its story.

While Corporate has leased space to other tenants as it shrunk operations in recent years, I'm unaware of any plans to sell space in the complex, which has 820,000 square feet, according to the architect.

Westchester | Former theater critic le Sourd dies

Jacques le Sourd, the longtime theater critic of The Journal News, has died after collapsing Feb. 5, outside the home of friends in Preston, Lancashire, England, where he had been living for more than a year. He was 64.

Le Sourd left the paper in June 2009 when the Journal News eliminated the Broadway critic’s position, the newspaper reported yesterday. But for 34 years, "le Sourd covered Broadway, Off-Broadway and local theater with a pen that flowed equally well whether crafting a pick or a pan."

Feb. 3-9 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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N.J. | Court advisor: give GCI $542K in legal fees

A court-appointed fact finder has recommended Gannett be reimbursed $542,000 in legal fees the company incurred in a lawsuit against a N.J. municipality seeking public documents in electronic formats more easily analyzed than paper ones.

Gannett won the suit against Raritan Borough in 2012, three years after filing it on behalf of its six N.J. newspapers: the Asbury Park Press, Courier News, Courier-Post, Daily Journal, Daily Record and Home News Tribune.

The case dragged on largely because the borough repeatedly filed new motions, all unsuccessful, challenging parts of state Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone’s rulings.

Ciccone appointed a special master in April to determine how much Gannett was entitled to receive in legal fees.

Feb. 3-9 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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Edmonds: Gannett's fourth-quarter earnings report hints at looming problem with newspaper paywalls

After yesterday's fourth-quarter and full-year financial report, the Poynter Institute's Rick Edmonds notes that circulation revenue was up for the year (1.1%) but down for the fourth quarter (off 1.6%) compared to the same period in 2012.

Martore

CEO Gracia Martore explained in a conference call to analysts that the company has now “cycled through” the lucrative introduction of paywalls together with bundled print plus digital subscriptions at its 80 community newspapers, Edmonds says, adding:

"This raises the concern that capturing revenue from new digital subscribers and pairing 'all access' print/digital bundles with a big price increase could be a one-time revenue event. Gannett not only failed to continue gaining circulation revenue at the end of the last year, it lost a little, as these subscriptions came up for renewal."

To Edmonds analysis, I'll add the following from a post in December where I said Gannett's overall digital strategy was in danger of hitting a wall on growth:

A forecast boom in digital-only subscriptions aimed at a key audience, younger readers, has become a stunning bust. In the third-quarter earnings teleconference with Wall Street analysts, Martore conceded Gannett had sold fewer than 100,000 nationwide vs. a forecast 250,000 to 300,000 by year's end. If sales remain tepid, the company will be saddled with three million aging subscribers and no clear path to replacing them.

In yesterday's conference call, Martore didn't mention digital subscription goals -- and analysts didn't bother asking, likely because they knew the worrisome answer.

WXIA | In Atlanta, it's a Super Bowl ad smack-down

"The quote on the Statue of Liberty doesn't say, 'Give me your English-speaking only, Christian-believing heterosexual masses.'"

-- News anchor Brenda Wood, in an opinion segment yesterday on WXIA in Atlanta. She was responding to the controversy over the America the Beautiful Super Bowl ad by Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. that aired Sunday. In a follow-up tonight, Wood says her original segment has drawn a bigger response than any other she's done.

Breaking up Gannett? Read Martore's reply today

Wall Street hasn't given up on pushing Corporate to spin off the flagging newspaper division, pressure that's been building especially since the takeover of TV company Belo. Here's one such exchange from this morning's fourth-quarter earnings teleconference with stock analysts, according to Seeking Alpha's transcript. As she has in the past, CEO Gracia Martore leaves herself plenty of wiggle room.

James Goss of Barrington Research: Why doesn't Gannett split up the company like everybody else is doing?

Martore: I think the most important thing that the Gannett can do right at this moment is to achieve all of the great synergies and all of the great things we believe we're going to achieve and we've set out that we're going to achieve from our combined Broadcasting group, not only for 2014 but to set the stage for all of that to occur over the next three years. So that has a lot of our time, focus and energy right now.

But at the same time, I will tell you that the board of directors and I are continuously evaluating, as you would expect, everything -- a lot of different ways for us to have consistent increases in shareholder value. We evaluate everything from capital allocation decisions to the appropriate structure for our businesses and our company and everything in between.

But I think, Jim, right at this moment in time, just literally having completed the Belo acquisition, in the short term our time, energy and focus is to create the substantial -- substantially more shareholder value we believe we're going to achieve with the successful and I believe overly successful achievement of everything we promised around the Belo transaction.

Here's a transcript of today's Q4 conference call

This Seeking Alpha transcript is of the 10 a.m. ET teleconference with Wall Street stock analysts, where CEO Gracia Martore and other executives discussed the fourth-quarter financial results released earlier in the day.

Q4 earnings fell 12% on steep newspaper ad drop

Gannett said this morning that fourth-quarter profit fell 12% as both print and broadcast revenue declined on tough comparisons with the year-earlier quarter, when results were boosted by TV political advertising from the national elections as well as an extra week during Q4 2012.

Company-wide revenue fell 9.9% to $1.37 billion. The major culprit once more: newspaper advertising in the company's largest division, which fell 10.3% to $590 million. That was the biggest quarterly ad revenue decline since the fourth quarter of 2009, when it plunged 17.9% to $791 million as the economy was leaving the Great Recession, according to regulatory documents.

Excluding the extra week in Q4 2012, newspaper ad revenues fell just 5.9%, Corporate said in today's news release announcing the results.

GCI's stock recently traded for $26.54 a share, nearly flat.

Related: a replay of the 10 a.m. conference call with Wall Street analysts; I'll post a transcript when it becomes available later today.

Feb. 3-9 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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Jan. 27-Feb. 2 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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