By: E&P Staff and The Associated Press In the past day, The New York Times and Knight Ridder (now in the midst of a possible sale) became the first of the major newspaper companies to report January revenues. The Times Co. reported a slight downturn in ad revenue for its papers while KR today reveals a nice bump.
Three newspapers acquired at the end of August by Knight Ridder are included in the 2006 numbers, but not in the 2005 numbers. Results for former KR papers in Detroit and Tallahassee, which were sold in the third quarter, were excluded from all periods.
Total advertising revenue at Knight Ridder was up 6.4% for January, although auto was down 6.9%. The following were all up: Retail (5.8%), national (0.1%), total classified (9.8%). Help wanted rose 17.4% and real estate 21.3%.
Knight Ridder Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder said, "These numbers are encouraging. They reflect impressive growth over the same period a year ago, when total ad revenue for the company was up 4.1%. The ongoing softness in national was most acute in Philadelphia."
Total ad revenue for the month was up 10.6% in St. Paul, 8.8% in San Jose, 8.4% in Contra Costa, 7.0% in Miami, 5.6% in Fort Worth, 2.5% in Charlotte and 1.9% in Kansas City.
Circulation revenue was up 2.9% for the month, but would have been down 1.1% if the three acquired newspapers were included in both periods.
On Wednesday, The New York Times became the first of the major newspaper companies to report January revenues. Unfortunately, it released "soft January revenue growth as the ever-important national category fell due to weak entertainment ad spending," Goldman Sachs observed in its quick analysis.
Total newspaper advertising for the company fell 0.3%. Overall, however, revenue grew 3.2% in January, aided by advertising revenue from information portal About.com.
The company said total monthly revenue increased to $300.4 million, up from $291 million in January 2005. Without About.com, total revenue edged up 0.7%.
"In January, traditionally a light month for advertising, revenues were on a par with those of the same period last year," President and Chief Executive Janet L. Robinson said in a statement.
Robinson said the Times saw growth in most ad categories, but it wasn't enough to offset lower studio entertainment advertising. The Boston Globe also saw weakness in entertainment and travel advertising.
Online revenue, however, excluding About.com, rose 22%.
"A sustained recovery in the national category is critical to a
turnaround in NYT stock performance," the Goldman Sach report pointed out, "and at this point, national results remain volatile from month to month.
"Industry implications: Weak newspaper ad revenue growth is consistent with our expectations that the industry is off to slow start in 2006."
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