The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) today reported a net loss from continuing operations in the first quarter of 2009 of $37.7 million, or 45 cents per share. Adjusted for certain items, (1) the loss from continuing operations was $22.9 million, or 28 cents.
Net loss from continuing operations in the first quarter of 2008 was $993,000, or one cent per share. Adjusted for certain items, (1) earnings from continuing operations were $2.8 million, or three cents in the first quarter of 2008.
Revenues from continuing operations in the first quarter of 2009 were $365.6 million, down 25.1% from the first quarter of 2008. Advertising revenues were $284.7 million, down 29.5% from the first quarter of 2008, while circulation revenues were up 0.9% to $68.5 million.
Results in both the 2009 and 2008 quarters include certain unique items. Compensation in 2009 included $19.7 million in severance and related charges incurred in connection with the restructuring plan announced by the company on March 9, 2009, while the 2008 quarter included $2.1 million related to restructuring programs last year. Interest expense in the 2008 quarter included a write-down of $3.4 million of deferred financing costs related to an amendment of the company's bank credit agreement. Both years also included adjustments related to discrete tax items.
The company noted that on April 15, 2009, it retired $31 million of unsecured notes which had matured. McClatchy has no other debt maturities until 2011, expects no required pension contributions until 2010, and has suspended cash dividends. Management expects to use cash primarily for debt repayment for the remainder of 2009.
Click here to see the entire press release. CEO Pruitt and management are participating in a conference call at 12 noon EST, so more info will be coming out later.
It looks like a negative report at first glance -- analysts had expected revenues would be $391 million, but McClatchy pulled in just $365.6 million for the quarter, a massive 25% drop from a year ago.
UPDATE: Here are links to other summaries: Editor & Publisher; Wall Street Journal; Associated Press.
UPDATE #2: A commenter says at first glance the report looks negative, but at the second glance it looks like an epitaph.
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30 comments:
(eyes rolling back into head)
Time to roll out their old hag Joan Bias and sing, “The times they are a changing”
I wonder if they've thought of publishing a newspaper?
6:42, very funny x2
CONFERENCE CALL:
"What say you and tiller boy?"
“We’ve had a contextual shift in the economic malaise… (Music please)
“What about the bias claim that was shouted about at GE’s shareholder meeting?
“We’ve had a contextual shift in the economic malaise (Music please)
“Do you thing columnist Ahmed Yale Abdullah at the KC Star, who copies DNC propaganda, should be fired?
“We’ve had a contextual shift in the economic malaise (Music please)
“Anything else you care to add?”
“Iceberg dead ahead?”
“But, you said that two years ago”
"More ice!"
EXEC PAY OUTRAGE SWEEPS (NY) TIMES
As the New York Times struggles to hold onto its dwindling pile of cash, its board is getting slammed by angry employees for hiking top executive pay as much as 35 percent.
And the Times lectures the world about this issue and at the same time they are doing exactly this.
They hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Like vampires can’t see their reflections, liberals cant see their own hypocrisy
WSJ - (A real newspaper)
Gary Pruitt, chairman and chief executive officer, said, "The impact of the downturn had largely been limited to print advertising in 2008, but in the first quarter of 2009 it began to have a greater effect on digital advertising as well. Still, all categories of digital advertising are outperforming print advertising. In total, digital advertising revenues decreased 4.7% in the first quarter of 2009."
Keeping it simple; From Market Watch:
McClatchy lost $0.45 per share, in the first quarter -- up from a loss of $0.01 per share a year ago. Analysts were expecting a loss of $0.03 per share.
It looks like a negative report at first glance
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Second Glance looks like an epitaph.
The corrupt MSM took a stance to elect a Socialist. Re: “What about the bias claim that was shouted about at GE’s shareholder meeting?”
NBC has lost all respect, and MSNBC is a joke. The crude remarks about the tea parties along with those of CNN were beyond the pale. They have lost any vestige of civility, and wasn’t that one of the Hopey-Changy promises, a kinder, gentler USA? Along with more government transparency, no lobbyists, a more intelligent cabinet, blah, blah, blah. I don’t believe these phony leftist polls regarding obama’s ratings, we must remember they are coming from the same corrupt sources as before.
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“-Sweet: GE chairman confronted about MSNBC bias at shareholders’ meeting-” @ Hot Air
@ Allahpundit “Smells like a set up. A glorious one”
Bad news travel fast.
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NEW YORK (MarketWatch):
McClatchy's loss exceeds Wall Street
11:11am 04/23/2009
MNI 0.53, -0.03, -5.1%) said Thursday it swung to a first-quarter loss of $37.7 million, or 45 cents a share, from a loss of $993,000, or 1 cent a share in the year-ago period. Adjusted loss in the latest period totaled 28 cents a share. Revenue at the Sacramento, Calif. company dropped 25% to $366 million. Analysts expected a loss of 3 cents a share, according to a survey by FactSet Research.
John Altevogt said...
I wonder if they've thought of publishing a newspaper?
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Ditto, an absolute ditto!
"McClatchy said today its 1st quarter earnings were $365.6 million, down a whopping 25% from a year ago."
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Wrong. Earnings and revenue are NOT the same thing. But it's just a blog ... not really expected to get things right, eh?
anon 8:30 so MNI is a raving success?
Then what’s you opinion rump roast?
Music for MNI/Pru -
♫ Down in the Boondocks ♫
Re: “Like vampires can’t see their reflections, liberals can’t see their own hypocrisy.”
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I hope newspapers don’t become like vampires returning from the grave. Refresh me, in lore, what is the only method that vampires can be eradicated?
8:30 Revenue is the correct term, I fixed the post, thanks.
Wrong. Earnings and revenue are NOT the same thing. But it's just a blog ... not really expected to get things right, eh?
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Yeah, that is what I said when the KC Star started falsifying MNI's closing prices. Did they correct it? No, they just stopped reporting it all together.
After all, it's just McClatchy...certainly no one expects the truth.
did i hear sombody say more layoffs in JUNE.
The KC Star is expected to do another round of layoffs in June, yes.
If McClatchy holds to form, that means another round at all of its other properties as well.
Looks like massive layoffs (a lot of managers, too) coming in June.
New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told the newspaper publisher's annual shareholders meeting Thursday that it has no plans to take the company private
Thursday that it has no plans to take the company private.
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What he forgot to say was that they couldn't raise the cash to go private if they wanted too.
I'm currently employed in Fort Worth. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE offer another round of buyouts! PRETTY PLEASE
8:38 PM
Good god! Why didn't you go when the going was good?
8:49
They wouldn't give it to me!
I had worked for the Fresno Bee for 22 years...took my buy-out in September of 08.The Fresno Bee has to be one of the poorest run companies I have ever seen. Glad I left.
I was layed off and took my buyout at the San Luis Obispo Tribune (McClatchy owned). This took place in the first quarter on March 27 and it was the 3rd layoff in 10 months at this particular paper in the chain.
They've stopped the 3% match on 401k, froze wages, froze pension contributions and downsized the paper to 44 inches. When the paper size is reduced, so are the ad sizes reduced. Yet the savings has not been passed along to the advertiser.
I have to say from where I was standing, morale was rock bottom then and I cannot imagine what it must be now. The paper seems to be poorly run as middle management is in constant meetings all day long . . . emphasis on "top heavy" with non-working middle management.
I too am glad I was given the opportunity to leave. That door closing just opened up a new, more positive door for me.
As a former east coast area MNI employee, I can't help but remember back to the end of 2007 when a McClatchy CFO came to our office to deliver yet another batch of endless bad news for the company (cutbacks, outsourcing, layoffs)and asked us if we had any questions. Me, being the impertinent little heifer that I am, I asked her, "have you guys ever looked into charging an online subscription fee? Or maybe a pay-per-click kind of thing to view stories and video?" The CFO gave me a reply I'll never forget:
"We thought about that for a little while, but we feel that paying for content isn't a good business model."
Duh-huh...really? I decided the next day to quit and have since taken a job with a more forward-thinking company. The problem with MNI and others like them that have suddenly found themselves sinking quickly is that A., maybe these newspaper execs should get off the golf course and start paying attention to what's going on in TODAY'S media environment; B., know that you can't sell papers when people can simply view them online for free, and C., if they all got together and decided ALL AT ONCE to charge for content via subscription or pay-per-click, they MIGHT be able to save themselves.
It may already be too late for MNI, though. If they don't get their heads out of the sand, the song Gary will play in his final video address to MNI employees is Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust."
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