By: (AP) Tribune Co., one of the nation's biggest owners of newspapers and TV stations, said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit fell 38%, hurt by a spate of charges related to work-force cuts and the shutdown of a production plant.
Chairman and CEO Dennis FitzSimons said circulation revenues from the company's 11 urban dailies are still down but cited progress and said paid circulation is stabilizing.
Net income for the last three months of 2005 decreased to $132.3 million, or 43 cents per share, from $214.7 million, or 67 cents per share, a year earlier.
Results included a severance charge for the elimination of 900 positions, mostly from Tribune's newspapers; a $22 million charge for the shutdown of the Los Angeles Times' San Fernando Valley printing facility; a $20 million loss on derivatives and other investments and a gain on pension curtailment.
Excluding those items, which amounted to 13 cents per share, Tribune's earnings would have been 56 cents per share, matching the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Revenue totaled $1.41 billion, down 5% from $1.48 billion in 2004. Analysts had expected the company to post sales of $1.42 billion.
The company estimated that its recent plant shutdown and job eliminations, mostly at the Los Angeles Times and Newsday, will result in annual savings of about $55 million to $60 million, beginning this year.
"Overall as we move into 2006, we've got our cost structure in line to reflect what had been challenging revenue trends," FitzSimons said on a conference call. "Now our priority is top-line growth."
Shares in Tribune fell 31 cents, or 1%, to $28.70 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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