Second quarter earnings reports are coming in. First up, KGW parent Belo reports a 15% decline, mainly due to falling newspaper revenues:
The results still beat Wall Street expectations, however.
Belo gave a cautious outlook for the third quarter, similar to recent comments from other newspaper companies. It said television revenue would be slightly higher but newspaper revenue would fall compared to a year ago. Newspaper companies have been hurt by competition from online outlets for both readers and advertising. ...
David T. Clark, an analyst for Deutsche Bank, said Belo beat expectations entirely because of a low effective tax rate. Belo said income taxes fell 15.3 percent.
The company trimmed costs 2.8 percent mostly due to job cuts last year at The Dallas Morning News and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif. The company also saved money by freezing its pension plan on March 31.
Television group revenue rose 2.5 percent, while newspaper group revenue declined 8.5 percent on weak newspaper advertising conditions and a slowdown in the Southern California housing market.
Belo also said Douglas G. Carlston, 60, chairman of Public Radio International, was elected to its board. Carlston was one of the founders and chief executive of Broderbund Software.
A PRI guy on the Belo board. Interesting!
Turning now to local radio behemoth Clear Channel, we find earnings up 19% for Q2, also beating Wall Street expectations. But it wasn't the radio division what done it:
Revenues from the radio business, which is now competing with both satellite and digital music players, continued to be flat, increased just 1% during the second-quarter. But the company's outdoor advertising revenues jumped 12% to $836.7 million.
So what have we learned? Newspapers and radio? Not so much. TV and billboards? Better.
Can producers and editors maybe get jobs pasting up the signs, you spose?
has always been predicated on the health of the Dallas Morning News. The fact that revenue is down that much combined with the circulation scandal a couple years back is not good for the entire company.