| April was a bad month for Gannett, which owns the Detroit Free Press, the Lansing State Journal, the Battle Creek Enquirer, the Livingston County Press & Argus, the Port Huron Times Herald, and the Observer and Eccentric papers in the Detroit suburbs. The chain reported a drop in operating revenue of 7.7 percent on a drop in advertising revenue of 10.4 compared to the same period last year. Strong showings in things like travel, restaurants, and advocacy (it is an election year) were offset by softness elsewhere. Also, the chain reported what has been a generally declining trend in what was once its bread-and-butter, classified advertising. Classified advertising in the chain's community papers dropped 20 percent. (An unrelated note, probably, is that a private investment group submitted a mini-tender for the company's stock.) That wasn't the end of the bad news. While operating margins were still fairly robust for the early part of this year, revenues fell faster than the company was able to reduce costs. The result? It also explains why a continued wave of reductions in staff and news space is now in process and likely in the months to come.
The good news of this is that the loss of reporters doesn't mean piling work on those few and declining number of warm bodies in the newsroom ... the space they have to fill is also disappearing. But, it does mean fewer shoe leather reporters doing important reporting in less space. |
