Following McClatchy’s negative earnings, another round of bad news hit the newspaper industry as the largest newspaper publisher in USA and publisher of USA Today, Gennett has announced that newspaper advertising revenue and third quarter earning fell respectively at 6% and 10.5%. Lack of real estate ads were blamed for the poor show.
Along with real estate, other classified categories also have dried up. Real estate dropped 11%, employment and automotive also went down with 8.4% and 11.7% respectively. Altogether, classified was down by 7.7%. Weakness of real estate classified market was mostly prevalent in the Sunbelt states which includes California and Florida.
Gannett’s broadcasting business also received a blow while recording 3.4% slid in third quarter. This time its lack of political ads that did the trick. No worry of spinning off the assets like Scripps or Belo though, informed CEO Craig Dubow.
Gannett Chairman and Chief Executive Craig Dubow said the company discusses its structure but “at this time, no, our position has not changed” on splitting Gannett’s stable of newspapers from its 23 local-TV stations.
It was inevitable that Gannett would face such questions.
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