Is Gannett's stock price racing to zero? Gannett posted disastrous earnings recently. The ever-shrinking media behemoth reported a $54 million loss in the second quarter as total revenue shrank 7% from a year earlier. The market punished Gannett for the bad news as its stock price fell to $2.30 per share although it recovered to a promising $2.50 per share today. The company issued the following statement:
“Our second quarter results and updated full year outlook reflect industry-wide headwinds in digital advertising as well as rising costs and pressures on consumers which are impacting our near-term performance. During the quarter we experienced a rapidly tightening macroeconomic environment caused by rising inflation coupled with distribution labor shortages and price sensitive consumers which has affected our traditional print business. Despite these challenges, our investments in our key operating pillars are yielding impressive results. We continue to experience considerable progress in our digital transformation and finished the quarter with 1.87 million digital paid subscribers, growing 35% year-over-year. In addition, our Digital Marketing Solutions business generated its highest quarter of core platform revenue of $116 million, and its highest quarter of core platform customers of over 16 thousand, while maintaining double-digit Adjusted EBITDA margins,” said Michael Reed, Gannett Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.However, the bad news wasn't necessarily bad news for everyone. The New Jersey Globe reported:
“Our revised guidance reflects our outlook based on current economic conditions. We are not satisfied with our overall performance in the second quarter and have quickly responded to this rapidly deteriorating economic environment by implementing a significant cost reduction program that we believe will better position the Company to realize its long-term growth goals, with a lower and more variable cost structure. The changes and reductions to our cost structure are focused primarily on our legacy print business."
"Along with strategic reductions to our cost structure, we have identified additional non-strategic and real estate assets to bring to market. We remain focused on repaying $150 million to $200 million of debt in 2022."
"While the current operating environment is challenging, we believe we can achieve our longer-term transformational digital growth goals. This current downturn is pulling forward print revenue losses anticipated in future periods, and more quickly requiring changes to our operations and cost structure which we believe will benefit us over time."
"We believe our subscription-led business model, robust balance sheet, and experienced management team put us in a solid position to weather this economic downturn and deliver long-term value to shareholders."
Gannett CEO Michael Reed, preparing to launch a new round of layoffs after the nation’s largest newspaper chain lost $54 million during the second quarter of this year, has increased his personal stake in the company.
Reed spent $1.22 million to buy 500,000 shares Gannett stock on Monday, raising his own holdings in the struggling media empire to 1,826,335 shares, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He paid $2.44 per share just says after his announcement of a 7% drop in revenue and huge losses sent Gannett stock in to a tailspin. Stock prices dropped 28% after Reed announced Gannett’s quarterly earnings last Thursday. The stock is down 57 % so far in 2022, and 85% over the last four years.... Article.
Is there anything left to cut at the Clarion-Ledger?
45 comments:
Get woke, go broke.
It will probably happen to you too, stankfish
They made their bed and can now sleep in it.
How they not go broke? Case study of how to ruin a company. Fire the good people, charge higher prices, repeat.
Oh look, nobody wants to read State propaganda.
Gannet going broke is the best thing for local newsprint. Let folks who actually care about the community own and operate local newspapers. No lone in any locality cares about warmed over USA Today corporate crap.
Every day I check the Clarion Ledger on line and find nothing much of interest other than the obituaries. One thing that pops up daily is the C-L committment to "diversity and inclusion "
Unfortunately few of those "diverse " folks ( also known as Blacks ) buy the paper or purchase ads.
Todays front page headlines “Monarch butterflies labeled endangered” really makes you want to subscribe. Butterflies have taken the headlines away from unusable city water, and the highest murder rate in the USA.
need more civil rights stories from the 60s-
Didn't realize they were still in business.
The CL publishes free driveway litter with auxiliary jps band boosters' picnic highlights and Dollar General type ads, often puts 3 copies in each bag, perhaps to triple enhance the circulation-based ad rates?
Good. Fucking. Riddance.
When I moved here in 2000, the CL was an actual newspaper worthy of a state capitol.
Now it’s worse than the free papers you can get at the gas station.
Shut them down and move them out. They are useless.
Let folks who actually care about the community own and operate local newspapers.
Who would that be?
@11:25 AM, Mississippi Today
Well have no fear. Sam Hall who helped destroy the Clarion Ledger is doing the same thing with the Tupelo paper. Three weeks ago he fired John Pitts his longtime sports editor and others at the paper. It's sinking fast.
If there is a demand for something they would not go broke. If no one wants to read what they print they should go out of business. Simple.
@12:04pm Have to agree. The Daily Journal has gone full blown leftist...S.E. Culp from CNN has a column now.
This is a great example of "get woke, go broke."
Nobody who can think for themselves wants to read their woke left wing lies, much less pay to read them. Good riddance!
Among other cutbacks, I'm guessing the CL will stop printing a couple more days a week, in addition to not printing on Saturdays & most holidays now. It won't stop pandering to Deion Sanders - the half page of color photos of his birthday party recently is proof. The display ran in the news section when the paper doesn't try very hard to cover crime & water problems.
Blame the internet first and smartphones second.
The destruction of the newspaper industry starts with craigslist and eBay and later companies like Zillow and all the others destroying the hundreds of years old pattern of buying and reading classified ads in newspapers to sell your stuff and find other people's stuff you wanted to buy.
Does anyone remember laughter? Whoops. Does anyone remember when you used to buy and sell tickets of all sorts in the newpaer classifieds?
Does anyone remember reading the newspaper obits every day to see if you had a funeral to attend? Now there is facebook.
If these companies hadn't existed some other ones would have taken advantage of the opportunity and captured these markets.
The attempt to blame the newspaper industries downfall on wokeness is laughably predictable for where you see it, why not blame it on miscegenation and dancing to Elvis music? The newspaper industry was the walking dead before wokeness was anything but what happened after your alarm goes off when you are asleep.
TLDR: No one reads anything but a screen now.
Bill Dees, reading their 990 it is clear that MT is in worse financial shape than the C-L. As for caring about the community, Jackson Jambalaya provides more overall community balance in its reporting than does MT.
They became a racist newspaper. Everyday article about some victim and lies about what is hipping in DC. The only part worth reading is sports and the funny papers. Otherwise just woke garbage. Not letters to the editors because you might disagree with the liberal crap the AP and USA Today put up as news.
imagine relying on the clarion ledger for information
12:33 The daily rag is going to pander to somebody. Who else do you suggest? Tater Reeves? Happy b'day Coach!
@11:50
Mississippi Today is somewhere left of Gannett but you probably already knew that.
12:38, wrong, there are plenty of thriving newspapers that adapted and create good content. The opposite strategy of the CL.
Good riddance. I'd still be subscribing if they printed anything worth reading and if they could deliver. But they haven't been able to do either for decades.
F ‘em!
My parrots love the Gannett newspapers.
The propaganda machine, of which Gannett is a part, doesn't heed the bottom line like normal businesses. They aren't producing to make money. Their only purpose is to trumpet the will of their masters.
They act as the agents of the nameless, faceless demigods to direct the flow of societal evolution. They keep the masses in a constant state of chaos and confusion, with crises after crises, from which they bring the desired order.
Their pattern is well-known and has been pointed out by many writers and commentators over the years. Manufacture a problem, broadcast that problem from every available source of communication, after sufficient time present the solution that will be used to produce the desired outcome.
Observe for yourself. Don't take my word. Look for the pattern.
The president of the company just bought half a million shares of the company. Funny how I don't think he will be investigated for insider trading. He might get a divorce though if he is married.
I lived in the Sip for 22 year and watched the demise of the Cl. I knew it would happen because Gannett never had A COMMITMENT TO LOCAL NEWS, the local papers here in the land of milk and honey, "LOUISIANA" cover national, regional, and local news and events. It always includes diversity and cultural issues daily. Its a diverse state with a blend of cultures where people live and let live. The police reports and crime blotters aren't overlooked but they are not dwell on either.
The news is generally positive and informative, that sells papers, Gannett lost site of that. Its a state wide newspaper owned by locals I guess that helps too.
It takes more than a commitment to local news. It takes an understanding of the *paying* customer base and efforts to not attack them at every turn with each daily edition.
I miss orley, Bobby and to some small degree,Rick
The last time I trusted the news it was with Huey Lewis.
Are there any newspapers making a profit in Mississippi?
In todays Internet world you have to have exceptional local and regional coverage. Talking about the good does sell more papers. Sports have to be covered in depth, that means everything from the bowling team to the football team most schools send out press releases even down to some high schools, all you have to do is print them. 100s of sites that cover world and national news. AP is still a decent source for that and they are available to everyone you can almost read as it’s written, who waits for it to be printed in a paper ?
Moved to Charleston, a city with a thriving and readable newspaper. I had forgotten how fun and exciting it was to get the Sunday paper, and read great articles about local issues.
Laughing at all the dopes riding the Jackson train into the dirt.
60 Minutes had a recent segment of the demise of newspapers in America.
Hedge Funds have bought and stripped them of all assets. It was eye-opening.
A good newspaper requires good reporters. Hiring good reporters requires a talent pool. Jackson does not have the talent. Sad but true.
"The ever-shrinking media behemoth reported a $54 million loss..."
Here, KF...I fixed it for ya:
"The ever-shrieking media behemoth reported a $54 million loss..."
Did the Clarion-Error pay Orley Hood to do nothing but sit around and write a column twice a week? Or did he do anything else like freshen up the men’s room or throw out the half-used Sweet ‘n’ Lo packets around the coffeemaker?
I can vouch for the corporate state of mind. The company I worked for "absorbed" a company in the same market. The absorbed company was millions in debt but the owner was fishing buddy of our CEO. Soon after the merger, the employees of said merged company were being elevated to managerial positions. Most of the original officers were phased out and now it is being run in the ground by incompetent managers. Their stock price has plummeted as well and equipment is idled, but the layoffs continue as bad decisions are the order of the day. "Protect our salaries and bonuses" is their motto!!! Same is true for the liberals at Gannett.
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