Journal sees brutal fourth quarter
Don Day | February 15, 2009Journal Communications saw revenue fall in the fourth quarter of 08 — down 9%. The company lost a stunning $223 million – which compares with a profit of $9.5 in the same quarter of 2007.
Publishing – down 10% (to $60 million)
Radio – down 7.7% (to $19.7 million)
TV – down 5.5% (to $33.4 million, despite an extra $6 million in political revenue)
“The overall economic environment and continued deterioration of advertising expenditures in Journal markets impacted our business in the fourth quarter causing lower revenue across all segments,” said CEO Steven Smith. “Fourth quarter total publishing revenue was off just over 10% and total broadcast revenue was off just over 6%. Overall Journal Communications revenue decreased 9.0% in the quarter and 6.5% in 2008. To date in the first quarter, we continue to see revenue declines across all of our businesses,” he added.
And this was during and election year!
Hearst wants to sell/shut down the San Francisco Chronicle and may soon close the Seattle PI, since there are no buyers for either paper. Since it costs about $10 to produce a single issue, it is getting harder and harder to justify spending over $3,000,000 a day just to print a single edition. Add in staff salaries and the cost of distribution and you know the old saying – a million here and a million there and pretty soon you run into real money. Can Journal be far behind in shutting down its newspaper division?
I know you always want to be fair on this sight, so I guess you missed this 4th quarter report….
Citadel Broadcasting Q4 Revenue Fell 12.7%, Radio Down
Citadel Broadcasting posted a 12.7% decline in net revenue for the fourth quarter of $214.2 million as compared to $245.5 million in 2007, mainly due to lower revenue of $27.9 million from its radio markets. Operating loss fell to $787.3 million from $1.04 billion on an impairment charge of $836.5 million. Excluding the charge OI would have been $10.1 million.
The company’s radio markets reported net revenue of $169.7 million down from $197.7 million in 2007. The company’s radio network, ABC Radio, posted Q4 revenues of $46.4 million compared to $49.8 million. (03-16-09)