Willes' time has come

By: Lucia Moses Analysts grow demanding; he's ready for challenge

Four years ago, Mark H. Willes, Times Mirror's new chairman, president and CEO, closed the money-losing New York Newsday, slashed staffs at the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun and soon became a new star on Wall Street.
The closing of the Baltimore Evening Sun and more staff cuts followed. Willes, a fter a successful run at General Mills, brought with him a tough, consumer-minded strategy to bring back readers.
But today the bloom seems to have faded. Times Mirror stock has leveled off in the $50-to-$60 range, and financial analysts now characterize the stock as an underperformer.
This year looms as a pivotal one for Willes, whose moves to bridge the news and business sides has made him one of the industry's most controversial figures.
While analysts give Willes credit for cost-cutting and ambitious plans to revamp the flagship L.A. Times, the time has come to demonstrate prospects for long-term growth.
"The jury is out on whether he can grow the company," says Peter Appert, analyst with BT Alex. Brown & Sons.
After Times Mirror sold off a number of assets, analysts want to see some acquisitions. So far this year, the company has made only small purchases - a preprint advertising publication, a group of shoppers, a group of weeklies.
Willes is making some progress toward his goal to grow circulation at the Times by 50%, a goal some analysts didn't take seriously. The Times gained just 0.3% in daily circulation in the six months ended March 31, but it was the sixth consecutive six-month period increase. Circulation is now 1,098,000 daily, 1,386,000 Sunday, down from the past decade's high of 1,243,000 daily, 1,576,000 Sunday, in March 1991.
Although the paper, which analysts say accounts for about 40% of Times Mirror's operating profits, continues to lag financially, the parent company continues to beat analysts' expectations, in 1998 and in the first quarter of 1999. Willes says savings from cost cutting at the Times had not been fully realized in the first quarter but that he still expects the company to meet its goal of 10% earnings-per-share growth in 1999.
Meanwhile, Willes' ongoing restructuring at the Times is getting mixed reviews.
After adding the title of Times publisher in 1997, Willes paired marketers with editors to reverse circulation declines.
The marketing push, while copied to different degrees by other papers, made many Times staffers uncomfortable. Several seasoned reporters left and were hired by The New York Times.
At the nation's fourth largest newspaper, key newsroom leaders and marketers have been replaced. Willes says top people who left didn't agree with his strategy but that resistance isn't a problem anymore.
One strong supporter is Frank del Olmo, who oversees the Times' Latino coverage. Before Willes, he says, he couldn't get the needed support to expand minority coverage.
Del Olmo says the marketing department helps him to promote stories and has not interfered with coverage. An important Latino story, for example, may be played prominently in the paper and promoted on Latino radio stations. "This is being noticed," he says. "The next challenge is getting the word out to nonsubscribers."
Some critics give the Times credit for improving ethnic coverage. Sig Gissler of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism led a workshop that studied more than 210 newspapers and TV stations and honored the Times for its overall ethnic and Latino coverage. "It's good to have a fresh breeze blowing through the paper," he says.
But some other academics and former Times staffers say the paper has suffered from the loss of some of its experienced journalists. They say they see more fluffy stories and fewer in-depth stories, once the Times' hallmark.
They also pan the quality level of "Our Times," a new series of community news pages that provide neighborhood news. The newly launched national edition, which circulates in California and Nevada and along the East Coast, hasn't impressed either.
Willes says he's only just begun. Now that he's gotten the right people and cost structure in place, he says, he plans to start marketing in earnest. "It's very hard to swing an entire organization around and get both the attitude right and then the skill set right and the cost structure right so you can do it," he told E & P.
Willes has his work cut out for him. The industry is in a period of slower ad growth, the Times faces an ethnically diverse and spread out coverage area, and is getting a run for its money in the city and the suburbs from competing newspapers.

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