Washington Post’s earnings release, via PaidContent:
– The newspaper publishing unit’s revenue totaled $227.9 million, a decrease of 7 percent from $245.6 million last year. Print ad revenue at The Post fell 13 percent to $128.4 million, from $148.3 million in Q206. Classified recruitment ad revenue dropped 22 percent to $13.2 million. The magazine publishing division had $73.4 million in Q2 revenue, a 13 percent decline from $84.2 million last year.
– Online publishing revenue, primarily from the washingtonpost.com, rose 11 percent year-over-year to $28.2 million in Q2 from $25.3 million.
It’s pretty simple, tally the losses, tally the gains, it’s not a promising picture. How quickly, and unreasonably, must online grow for print companies before their offline business escontinue to shrink?
But, credit is due to Washington Post, one of the stronger newspaper companies.
Some stats from my earlier post, Stop the Newspaper Obituary, Please, while most newspaper companies are doing worse, WPO is doing relatively well:
Washington Post’s 2003 sales as of 12/31/2003: $2.957B
Washington Post’s 2006 sales as of 3/24/2007: $3.904B
Washington Post’s market cap as of 12/31/2003: $6.181B
Washington Post’s market cap as of 3/24/2007: $7.32B
That’s not too bad. But then again, Warren Buffett doesn’t invest in crap.
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