MORE NEWSPAPERS TURN TO WEB FOR INVESTOR CALLS

By: Lucia Moses Knight Ridder Webcasts Third-Quarter Earnings Today





When Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder hosts a conference call Tuesday to announce the company's third-quarter earnings, investors and the media will for the first time be able to tune in on the Web. The No. 2 U.S. newspaper chain is among a growing number of public companies using the Web not only to grow their businesses but to explain them to investors.



An August poll by the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) of its more than 4,500 members showed that 61% already Webcast conference calls and another 23% plan to do so by year's end, said Louis M. Thompson Jr., NIRI president and CEO. Three years ago, he said, only 14% of members opened their conference calls to the media.



NIRI tells its members that Webcasts are the best way to assure compliance with the new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule that is aimed at preventing selective disclosure and takes effect Oct. 23. Knight Ridder said the SEC's Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure) requiring companies to disseminate information simultaneously to the press, analysts, and investors - along with increasing media and investor nudging - led to the decision to conduct a Web broadcast. "It just is the wave of the future," company spokesman Polk Laffoon IV said.



Publisher and broadcaster Belo began Webcasting its conference calls last year as a way to tell its story to a wider audience while showing its commitment to new media. "If you're going to hold yourself out as being on the Internet, you need to take advantage of all of those ways to talk about the company," Vice President Donald F. "Skip" Cass Jr. said.



Other public newspaper companies using Webcasting are Dow Jones & Co. Inc., the Tribune Co., the E.W. Scripps Co., and Media General Inc. Gannett Co. Inc. and the New York Times Co. don't, but are looking in that direction. "It's a more expensive proposition, and, in the past, it's not been so dependable," Times Co. spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said.



Some companies - media companies included - remain reluctant to widen access to conference calls because they don't trust the press to report them fairly, Thompson said. But that argument is losing strength as the media becomes increasingly business-savvy, he said. And with frustration over lagging share prices running high, some newspaper companies may come to realize that they have more to gain than to lose from public exposure.







Lucia Moses (lmoses@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor covering business for E&P.







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