Pinching Forbes

The New York Times reported today that even Forbes is feeling the squeeze of the economy.
While Forbes magazine has 920,000 subscribers, its average issue price has steadily decreased and its ad pages are down 15 percent in the first quarter compared to last year.
The article reports Forbes has stopped matching contributions to its 401k program, laid off roughly 100 of its 1,000 employees since November and started five-day unpaid furloughs for its staff.
In the story, Mark M. Edmiston of AdMedia Partners asserts Forbes isn't worth half the $75 million its worth has been estimated in the past.
Yet the Times reports that Forbes' misery isn't without company, with the Publishers Information Bureau listing revenue of over $338 million for Forbes, $276 million for Fortune and $236 million for BusinessWeek.
The story shows the recession is impacting both people's demand for Forbes' economic content and its employees' desire to cover it. From the story:

“Everyone here likes the magazine, the people who run it, and most of us believe in the mission,” said one editorial employee who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with a reporter. “But that sense of mission is sort of hard to sustain when most of the news is bad. Capitalism is a less sexy topic for everyone, including us.”

View the story here.

Is covering capitalism less sexy for you? What do you think about the struggling of Forbes and its competitors? Comment and let use know.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch owner reports smaller loss

Lee Enterprises, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch among other papers, reported results for its second fiscal quarter Thursday.
The company posted a loss, but still fared better than it did in the previous quarter, according to the Associated Press via Yahoo! Finance.

The Davenport-based company lost $51.8 million, or $1.16 per share, in the quarter that ended March 29, compared with a loss of $713 million, or $15.90 per share. Excluding one-time costs, its loss was 7 cents per share.

Advertising sales were down 24 percent, with individual categories falling anywhere from 19 percent (retail ads) to 33 percent (classified).
In line with a common trend this quarter, the company showed losses in online advertising of 27 percent. Several other companies have shown similar losses online, where they had been experiencing solid growth for several years.
To read more, click here.

Washington Post Co. loses nearl $20 million in quarter

The Washington Post Company released its quarterly results Friday, which showed that the company lost $19.2 million in the quarter, according to The New York Times.

The newspaper division reported an operating loss of $54 million. And to punctuate that unit's decline, cable TV revenue overtook publishing for the first time. Now newspapers bring The Washington Post Co. less revenue than either cable or Kaplan education services, two units that have helped shield the company from the publishing industry's woes. The Washington Post Co. had seen nine straight quarters of declining profit before the loss this time around.

The year-over-year decline in revenue was due largely to a decrease in ad revenue of 33 percent, a figure that has not been uncommon for other large newspaper companies so far in 2009.
However, while most other companies are seeing online ad revenue increases in the general range of 10 percent, the Washington Post Co. posted an 8 percent loss in the category.
To read more, click here.

McClatchy hit hard by 1st quarter ad revenue

McClatchy Co. announced its first quarter results Thursday, and reported a drop in advertising revenue of just under 30 percent, according to Editor & Publisher.
Overall losses also exceeded analysts' expectations:

McClatchy reported a loss of $37.7 million, or 45 cents a share, from a loss of $993,000, or 1 cent a share, in the first quarter of 2008. Adjusted for certain items, such as severance payments from a wave of layoffs, the loss from continuing operations was $22.9 million, or 28 cents a share. The consensus of analysts had been for an 11-cent loss per share.

In more positive news, print revenue increased slightly, and when employment advertising is excluded, digital advertising was up 28.7 percent.
Click here to read more.

NYT ad revenue way down

Bloomberg reports that The New York Times Co. listed a 27 percent drop in first-quarter advertising revenue, expanding its net loss to $74.5 million.
From the story:

Times Co. cut jobs, slashed pay, halted its dividend and sold assets to help preserve cash after ad revenue slipped 13 percent last year. It’s seeking to sell its minority stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team and is negotiating additional pay and job cuts with unions. “It’s clear from these results that it’s a very, very bad environment for newspapers,” Edward Atorino, a New York-based analyst at Benchmark Co., said in an interview. “There’s no sign of relief.