Well, this is depressing. The New York Times Co., owner of the Boston Globe, is threatening to close Boston / New England's biggest newspaper if the unions don't concede to pay cuts.
New York Times threatens to close Boston Globe
Here's more depressing news, from local quarters:
MediaNews, the Denver-based owner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, has been slow in paying off its debts. Skipping debt payments was a strategy of the Pioneer Press' main competitor, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, just before declaring bankruptcy.
MediaNews skips payments
Showing posts with label Pioneer Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pioneer Press. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Layoffs hit the Pioneer Press, Star Tribune newsrooms
Well, the STRIB has declared bankruptcy but is still printing. Seven people were laid off from the Star Tribune newsroom Friday, with the possibility of six being hired back if anyone else in the newsroom reconsiders and takes the buyout offer, the gossip train calls a pretty meager package. Fat chance.
Layoffs hit the Pioneer Press on Friday, as well. This is the first time my sources can recall the PiPress laying off full-time newsroom staffers. In the past, they've offered voluntary contract buy-outs, reduced their part-time and on-call staff. This is new.
Here's the memo that circulated Friday from the top brass:
Fellow staffers:
We've taken steps this week in reaction to the severe economic downturn and in anticipation of a very challenging 2009 -- including Friday's layoff of four newsroom colleagues.
The layoffs included:
--- Picture editor Randy Johnson
--- Clerk Tom Morley
--- Web producer John Vincent
--- Sports copy editor Tim Whitecotton
Additionally, Cindy Larson, one of our newsroom clerks, and Dick Klitsch, who worked on our sports copy desk, will be moving to the ad production department.
We also eliminated the budget for on-call help on the sports copy desk, most directly affecting five regular on-call contributors: Kyle Anway, Brad Perlich, Travis Petschl, Alexandra Pluym and Val Reichel.
I thank them all. We will miss them and their daily contributions to the work we all do.
I made these moves reluctantly -- but also knowing that I had to, given the immediate and near-future outlook for the economy. My overriding goal was to protect our reporting power. Our ability to continue to produce distinctive journalism that can't be found anywhere else is more important now than it has ever been. And we must produce that work for our online operations, daily newspaper and niche publications.
Towards that end, we're making some other changes. We'll be merging the operations of the news and sports copy desks, to more widely share the load and increase how efficiently we move copy. To help do so, we'll be rearranging desks and asking lots of people to move, including photo and the hub and sports desk staffers on the 6th floor. We'll be moving desks on Monday morning.
What can we all be doing, right here and right now, to help? Journalism. Break exclusive news online and in print. Tell stories that can't be found anywhere else. Find photos that jump off the page and videos that must be watched. Design dynamic illustrations and pages. Write headlines that demand to be read.
Thanks. As always, I'm here for questions. --
Layoffs hit the Pioneer Press on Friday, as well. This is the first time my sources can recall the PiPress laying off full-time newsroom staffers. In the past, they've offered voluntary contract buy-outs, reduced their part-time and on-call staff. This is new.
Here's the memo that circulated Friday from the top brass:
Fellow staffers:
We've taken steps this week in reaction to the severe economic downturn and in anticipation of a very challenging 2009 -- including Friday's layoff of four newsroom colleagues.
The layoffs included:
--- Picture editor Randy Johnson
--- Clerk Tom Morley
--- Web producer John Vincent
--- Sports copy editor Tim Whitecotton
Additionally, Cindy Larson, one of our newsroom clerks, and Dick Klitsch, who worked on our sports copy desk, will be moving to the ad production department.
We also eliminated the budget for on-call help on the sports copy desk, most directly affecting five regular on-call contributors: Kyle Anway, Brad Perlich, Travis Petschl, Alexandra Pluym and Val Reichel.
I thank them all. We will miss them and their daily contributions to the work we all do.
I made these moves reluctantly -- but also knowing that I had to, given the immediate and near-future outlook for the economy. My overriding goal was to protect our reporting power. Our ability to continue to produce distinctive journalism that can't be found anywhere else is more important now than it has ever been. And we must produce that work for our online operations, daily newspaper and niche publications.
Towards that end, we're making some other changes. We'll be merging the operations of the news and sports copy desks, to more widely share the load and increase how efficiently we move copy. To help do so, we'll be rearranging desks and asking lots of people to move, including photo and the hub and sports desk staffers on the 6th floor. We'll be moving desks on Monday morning.
What can we all be doing, right here and right now, to help? Journalism. Break exclusive news online and in print. Tell stories that can't be found anywhere else. Find photos that jump off the page and videos that must be watched. Design dynamic illustrations and pages. Write headlines that demand to be read.
Thanks. As always, I'm here for questions. --
Saturday, June 21, 2008
How Pioneer Press owner "Lean" Dean Singleton got rich in newspapers and then took on potentially crippling debt
Here's some analysis from the Poynter Institute's business desk that anyone with a remote interest in the welfare of the Pioneer Press and other MediaNews holdings will want to read:
Poynter Biz blog on newspaper debt
Poynter Media Business Analyst Rick Edmonds tracks the latest industry developments.
Add/View All The Biz Blog Feedback
More The Biz Blog RSSPrint this Page
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2008Posted at 9:54:37 AM
It's the Debt, Stupid
When Sam Zell and his lieutenants or Dean Singleton opine on the state of the newspaper industry and the drastic remedies required, as they have in recent weeks, it puts me in a mood to scream.
Yes, times are tough. But the latest draconian cuts they are imposing on employees and readers are going largely to service the ridiculous levels of debt they had the bad judgment to take on.
Let's look at the numbers. Zell's Tribune began life last December with more than $12 billion in debt. Goldman Sachs analyst Peter Appert wrote then that the company would face around $1 billion in debt payments this year, which cash flow from its operations would barely cover.
Things aren't working out even that well, with revenue declines much worse than expected. For the first quarter of 2008, Tribune reported cash flow of about $200 million from operations. Interest payments totaled $263 million. Forget profits, obscene or otherwise, the company operated at a loss.
Turning to Singleton's MediaNews, it reported interest payments of about $80 million in 2007, sucking up about 6 percent of the revenue its newspapers generated.
MediaNews stopped reporting its financials in April, but it is reasonable to assume debt service remains about the same in 2008 at the same time revenues, and earnings, keep falling (as they are throughout the industry).
By contrast, an extremely conservative borrower, the Washington Post Co., had interest payments of only $12 million in 2007. Its diverse businesses generated revenue of over $4 billion, more than triple those of MediaNews.
So when Tribune announces it will "right-size" by getting the split of advertising and news space to 50-50 in its papers, I wonder whether this abnormal level of shoehorning news is largely a ploy to finance debt.
When Singleton boasts to an international conference in Sweden of his progressive step of depriving various of his California papers of local-based publishers and copy desks, I think I know why no other major American publishing group has gone that far. Feeling prosecutorial about these exercises in making a difficult situation worse, I do need to add a few qualifiers.
The Tribune deal came with a huge tax benefit and an understanding that some assets would need to be sold. MediaNews operates on a model distinctly its own, including joint operating agreements for three of its biggest papers and a number of management contracts, particularly with well-heeled Hearst.
Being highly leveraged has always been part of the game plan, and Singleton has been shrewd lately about getting paid without committing his own capital. You could also argue that the industry has consistently underestimated how much revenue and earnings will fall.
If that is still the case, Tribune and MediaNews could be avatars of deeper cuts other companies may resort to in another six months to a year. Also we are past the point where cutting the newspaper expense base can reasonably be blamed on greedy, bad-guy managers.
If an industry loses 20 percent of revenues over two years, more in problem spots like Florida and California, you don't need an M.B.A. to figure out the necessity of bringing down costs. Still, I think operators like Zell and Singleton are squishy where others are forthright on the concurrent need to keep heft and quality in the print product and invest aggressively in new digital operations.
Frankly, I don't think they have the money to do it -- because the banker has to be paid first.
In December 2006, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster spoke to an investors' conference in New York. Asked the inevitable question about whether he felt guilty about helping destroy the industry's classified base, he replied that he and Craig Newmark thought the bigger problem was excessive debt. (Craigslist, essentially, has none).
Both are problems, but I do think debt has become a very important gradient now when looking at companies. Zell, Singleton, McClatchy and private groups in Minneapolis and Philadelphia all labor under the burden of having bought papers assuming earnings as they were instead of earnings as they have become.
McClatchy announced deep cuts of its own this week and carries big debt from laying out $4 billion (after the sale of some papers) for Knight Ridder just as the business turned from stalled to plunging in mid-2005. But McClatchy also sold its largest paper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, ahead of the curve of sinking valuations and has actually been paying down debt as well as covering interest payments.
Conversely, some companies have had the good sense or good fortune not to buy any newspapers this decade. That hasn't earned them favor on Wall Street, but it does leave a lot more maneuvering room for transformation in the next several years.
That group would include, among others, A.H. Belo, E.W. Scripps, the Washington Post and New York Times companies, and Cox. I don't think it coincidental that you see some of the boldest digital experiments and strongest online growth rates at the newspapers of these companies.
-- END --
Poynter Biz blog on newspaper debt
Poynter Media Business Analyst Rick Edmonds tracks the latest industry developments.
Add/View All The Biz Blog Feedback
More The Biz Blog RSSPrint this Page
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2008Posted at 9:54:37 AM
It's the Debt, Stupid
When Sam Zell and his lieutenants or Dean Singleton opine on the state of the newspaper industry and the drastic remedies required, as they have in recent weeks, it puts me in a mood to scream.
Yes, times are tough. But the latest draconian cuts they are imposing on employees and readers are going largely to service the ridiculous levels of debt they had the bad judgment to take on.
Let's look at the numbers. Zell's Tribune began life last December with more than $12 billion in debt. Goldman Sachs analyst Peter Appert wrote then that the company would face around $1 billion in debt payments this year, which cash flow from its operations would barely cover.
Things aren't working out even that well, with revenue declines much worse than expected. For the first quarter of 2008, Tribune reported cash flow of about $200 million from operations. Interest payments totaled $263 million. Forget profits, obscene or otherwise, the company operated at a loss.
Turning to Singleton's MediaNews, it reported interest payments of about $80 million in 2007, sucking up about 6 percent of the revenue its newspapers generated.
MediaNews stopped reporting its financials in April, but it is reasonable to assume debt service remains about the same in 2008 at the same time revenues, and earnings, keep falling (as they are throughout the industry).
By contrast, an extremely conservative borrower, the Washington Post Co., had interest payments of only $12 million in 2007. Its diverse businesses generated revenue of over $4 billion, more than triple those of MediaNews.
So when Tribune announces it will "right-size" by getting the split of advertising and news space to 50-50 in its papers, I wonder whether this abnormal level of shoehorning news is largely a ploy to finance debt.
When Singleton boasts to an international conference in Sweden of his progressive step of depriving various of his California papers of local-based publishers and copy desks, I think I know why no other major American publishing group has gone that far. Feeling prosecutorial about these exercises in making a difficult situation worse, I do need to add a few qualifiers.
The Tribune deal came with a huge tax benefit and an understanding that some assets would need to be sold. MediaNews operates on a model distinctly its own, including joint operating agreements for three of its biggest papers and a number of management contracts, particularly with well-heeled Hearst.
Being highly leveraged has always been part of the game plan, and Singleton has been shrewd lately about getting paid without committing his own capital. You could also argue that the industry has consistently underestimated how much revenue and earnings will fall.
If that is still the case, Tribune and MediaNews could be avatars of deeper cuts other companies may resort to in another six months to a year. Also we are past the point where cutting the newspaper expense base can reasonably be blamed on greedy, bad-guy managers.
If an industry loses 20 percent of revenues over two years, more in problem spots like Florida and California, you don't need an M.B.A. to figure out the necessity of bringing down costs. Still, I think operators like Zell and Singleton are squishy where others are forthright on the concurrent need to keep heft and quality in the print product and invest aggressively in new digital operations.
Frankly, I don't think they have the money to do it -- because the banker has to be paid first.
In December 2006, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster spoke to an investors' conference in New York. Asked the inevitable question about whether he felt guilty about helping destroy the industry's classified base, he replied that he and Craig Newmark thought the bigger problem was excessive debt. (Craigslist, essentially, has none).
Both are problems, but I do think debt has become a very important gradient now when looking at companies. Zell, Singleton, McClatchy and private groups in Minneapolis and Philadelphia all labor under the burden of having bought papers assuming earnings as they were instead of earnings as they have become.
McClatchy announced deep cuts of its own this week and carries big debt from laying out $4 billion (after the sale of some papers) for Knight Ridder just as the business turned from stalled to plunging in mid-2005. But McClatchy also sold its largest paper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, ahead of the curve of sinking valuations and has actually been paying down debt as well as covering interest payments.
Conversely, some companies have had the good sense or good fortune not to buy any newspapers this decade. That hasn't earned them favor on Wall Street, but it does leave a lot more maneuvering room for transformation in the next several years.
That group would include, among others, A.H. Belo, E.W. Scripps, the Washington Post and New York Times companies, and Cox. I don't think it coincidental that you see some of the boldest digital experiments and strongest online growth rates at the newspapers of these companies.
-- END --
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Could the Pioneer Press buy the Star Tribune?
Dean Singleton, the owner of the Media News Group (the Denver-based company that bought the Pioneer Press after Knight Ridder dissolved) has made a career of buying papers in crisis, gutting their staffs, and then cracking the whip. It's publish or perish.
It's a strategy that has supposedly made Singleton a multi-millionaire. Or is that billionaire?
For years, the talk was that the Star Tribune would oneday absorb the Pioneer Press, a stalwart underdog in one of the last great media rivalries in the United States of America.
But if the Avista Corp., which bought the Star Tribune not long ago and has no great love of media holdings, is doing as poorly financially as it claims to be, perhaps things could go the other way around?
City Pages ponders the possibility and dishes on the Star Tribune's meager finances here, as the New York Post did before it:
City Pages article on the Star Tribune
Singleton could, in theory, ride in and buy the Star Tribune, and either merge the two papers or create a joint operating agreement of sorts. Shared content. Shared printing presses. But separate identities, each capitalizing on the loyal fan base for each paper in each city.
A group of eight rival newspapers in Ohio just did something along a similar vein here, sharing content between them as an answer to the Associated Press rate hike:
More on the operating agreement-style parternship here:
Ohio papers share content
It's a strategy that has supposedly made Singleton a multi-millionaire. Or is that billionaire?
For years, the talk was that the Star Tribune would oneday absorb the Pioneer Press, a stalwart underdog in one of the last great media rivalries in the United States of America.
But if the Avista Corp., which bought the Star Tribune not long ago and has no great love of media holdings, is doing as poorly financially as it claims to be, perhaps things could go the other way around?
City Pages ponders the possibility and dishes on the Star Tribune's meager finances here, as the New York Post did before it:
City Pages article on the Star Tribune
Singleton could, in theory, ride in and buy the Star Tribune, and either merge the two papers or create a joint operating agreement of sorts. Shared content. Shared printing presses. But separate identities, each capitalizing on the loyal fan base for each paper in each city.
A group of eight rival newspapers in Ohio just did something along a similar vein here, sharing content between them as an answer to the Associated Press rate hike:
More on the operating agreement-style parternship here:
Ohio papers share content
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