By: Jay DeFoore Interactive media is clearly one of the few growth spots for newspapers, but parsing income figures from quarterly statements is no easy task.
Still, we dove into this week's Q3 earnings reports for the major publishing companies and pulled out the few pertinent nuggets.
Even though most companies show gains approaching 50% over 2004 online figures, revenues from Internet properties still account for only a tiny portion of the companies' overall numbers. Most don't even bother breaking out the information. Kudos to Media General Inc., which offers the most detailed online information. If you missed our Media General report earlier this week, follow
this link.
Check back here next week when we'll do the same for Journal Communications, McClatchey, The New York Times, Dow Jones, and Belo.
Below are some of the key takeaways from the Q3 reports released so far:
Knight Ridder- Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder said: "Our digital operations continue to expand exponentially. For the quarter, excluding the acquired newspapers, online ad revenue was up 51.8%; for the year to date it is up 53.6%. Likewise, our weeklies, free dailies, shoppers and targeted print publications, in the aggregate, continue to show revenue increases in the double digits.
- "We announced in September staff reductions in two of our largest newspaper operations. At the same time, we are expanding our online operations and we continue to add people where they can contribute to growth: in core newspaper sales, in online and in targeted publishing."
E.W. Scripps- At Shopzilla, an online comparison shopping service acquired by Scripps in June, segment profit for the third quarter was $7.3 million on revenue of $35.2 million. In the third quarter of 2004, Shopzilla recorded $1.2 million of segment profit on $15.9 million of revenue.
- Said Kenneth W. Lowe, president and chief executive officer for Scripps: "At Shopzilla, we're seeing plenty of evidence that a rapidly growing number of online shoppers are discovering the utility of this very powerful, online product search and price comparison service. On a pro-forma basis, revenue at Shopzilla more than doubled year-over-year and segment profit increased about six fold. The number of unique visitors to Shopzilla also was up sharply during the quarter, demonstrating the growing popularity of the brand with consumers."
Tribune- Interactive revenues were up 46% to $47 million, mainly due to strength in classified help wanted revenues.
Gannett- Gannett had nary a mention of its online revenues, though it did include this online Internet audience report in its September statement.
- Gannett Online Internet Audience
September 2005
Home/Work Panel Combined
Unique Visitors Per Month: 21,358,000
% Reach of Internet Audience: 14.3%
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
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