Diversified media company New York Times Co. (NYT) is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results before the market opens Wednesday. On average, three analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to earn $0.38 per share for the quarter, with estimates ranging between $0.32 and $0.43 per share. Revenues for the quarter are estimated to be $653.17 million. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
Print media has been grappling with dwindling advertising revenues as the recession forced customers to shift to online advertising. The New York-based company, controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family through its ownership of supervoting shares, has been selling assets and cutting costs to manage its debt and keep expenses in line with declining advertising revenues.
In February 2008, the company decided to cut about 100 newspaper jobs. In October 2009, the company said it would trim another 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year to tide over the crisis created by the fall in advertising revenue. At that time, New York Times said it would cut about 8% of the 1,250 workers, and intends to offer buyouts. The company, publisher of The New York Times and The Boston Globe, said it would resort to layoffs if enough people did not leave voluntarily.
In December 2009, the company said it expects fourth-quarter print advertising revenues to drop about 25% due to challenging market conditions, while total online advertising revenues are expected to rise nearly 10%.
However, recent reports suggest that the nascent economic recovery has some what strengthened advertising demand.
For the third quarter, the news provider's net loss attributable to common shareholders narrowed to $35.62 million or $0.25 per share from $106.29 million or $0.74 per share in the year-ago quarter, helped by cost reductions. Total revenues for the quarter decreased 16.9% to $570.62 million from $687.04 million in the prior-year quarter.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, the company reported earnings of $27.65 million or $0.19 per share, including $0.10 per share for severance costs and a non-cash charge totaling $0.07 per share for write-down of assets. Total revenues decreased 10.8% to $772.05 million.
In fiscal 2008, the company reported a net loss of $57.84 million or $0.40 per share. Revenues were $2.949 billion. Advertising revenues declined 13.1% to $1.780 billion, while Circulation revenues increased 2.3% to $910.15 million. The News Media group generated $2.834 billion in revenues, while the About Group brought in $115.30 million.
For fiscal 2009, Wall Street expects the company to report earnings of $0.20 per share on revenues of $2.42 billion. The company said last December that for full year 2009 it expects $133 million of depreciation and amortization, including $6 million of accelerated depreciation for the consolidation of Boston Globe's printing plants.
Last month, New York Times said it would charge some frequent readers for access to its Web site. Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view only a certain number of articles free each month, and the reader will have to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge, the paper said. Fundamental features of the plan were not revealed then, and the company may update this proposal today.
Among others in the industry, Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI), the publisher of USA Today, last week reported a profit for the fourth quarter, compared with a loss last year, reflecting cost cuts and the absence of impairment of goodwill that the company recorded last year. Net income attributable to the company in the quarter was $133.6 million or $0.56 per share, compared to a net loss of $4.7 billion or $20.65 per share in the prior year. The company's net operating revenues declined 14.4% to $1.49 billion from $1.74 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
While announcing the results, Craig Dubow, Gannett's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said ''Advertising demand firmed with the stabilization of the economies of the U.S. and UK. Our fourth quarter revenue comparisons were the best of the year with sequential improvement during the quarter.''
News Corp. (NWS, NWSA), which owns The Wall Street Journal, last week posted net income attributable to shareholders of $254 million or $0.10 per share in the second quarter, compared to a net loss of $6.4 billion or $2.45 per share in the prior-year quarter. Second-quarter revenue increased 10% to $8.68 billion from $7.87 billion in the same quarter last year.
NY closed Tuesday's regular trade at $11.67, up $0.06 or 0.52%, on 4.60 million shares. For the past year, the stock traded in the range of $3.44-$14.87.
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