Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
On the value of fish wrap...
Expert says Tribune Co. wanted to buy U-T in gloomy 2008
Had to search a bit for this photo — seems newsprint is no longer suitable for fish.
Ken Doctor, probably the reigning expert on the economics of the newspaper industry, said yesterday (May 19) in a story for capitalnewyork.com that Chicago's Tribune Co. wanted to buy the U-T in depressed 2008 for only $22 million. That's four times what Tribune Publishing paid recently. The 2008 deal never went through because Tribune Co. went bankrupt.
According to other sources, in the 2008 panic, the U-T was having trouble borrowing money to fix its problems, and the late David Copley had decided in late 2007 or early 2008 that he didn't want to own the paper any longer.
Doctor points out that when Copley sold the paper in 2009 to Platinum Equity for $35 to $50 million, "the billion-dollar property had lost 95 percent of its value." Indeed, David Copley had been listed as a billionaire by Forbes magazine, and that was based on the value of the paper, I determined at the time.
The stock-market value of newspaper chains had plunged by roughly the same magnitude at the market bottom.
In assessing newspaper profitability, Doctor uses EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). I call it operating cash flow, although some would say that is not accurate. Call it earnings with some accounting adjustments deleted. In any case, Doctor says the U-T now has EBITDA of $20 million to $24 million annually. If that's true, I have been wrong; I haven't thought the U-T was very profitable at all, even after layoffs under the Copley, Platinum Equity, and Manchester ownership. (The company's earnings have been kept secret, although the U-T has occasionally boasted of its profitability.)
Doctor is not bullish on the industry. There is one word for what has happened: "devaluation," says Doctor.
Here's something you might be interested in.
On the value of fish wrap...
Expert says Tribune Co. wanted to buy U-T in gloomy 2008
On the value of fish wrap...
Expert says Tribune Co. wanted to buy U-T in gloomy 2008
Had to search a bit for this photo — seems newsprint is no longer suitable for fish.
Ken Doctor, probably the reigning expert on the economics of the newspaper industry, said yesterday (May 19) in a story for capitalnewyork.com that Chicago's Tribune Co. wanted to buy the U-T in depressed 2008 for only $22 million. That's four times what Tribune Publishing paid recently. The 2008 deal never went through because Tribune Co. went bankrupt.
According to other sources, in the 2008 panic, the U-T was having trouble borrowing money to fix its problems, and the late David Copley had decided in late 2007 or early 2008 that he didn't want to own the paper any longer.
Doctor points out that when Copley sold the paper in 2009 to Platinum Equity for $35 to $50 million, "the billion-dollar property had lost 95 percent of its value." Indeed, David Copley had been listed as a billionaire by Forbes magazine, and that was based on the value of the paper, I determined at the time.
The stock-market value of newspaper chains had plunged by roughly the same magnitude at the market bottom.
In assessing newspaper profitability, Doctor uses EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). I call it operating cash flow, although some would say that is not accurate. Call it earnings with some accounting adjustments deleted. In any case, Doctor says the U-T now has EBITDA of $20 million to $24 million annually. If that's true, I have been wrong; I haven't thought the U-T was very profitable at all, even after layoffs under the Copley, Platinum Equity, and Manchester ownership. (The company's earnings have been kept secret, although the U-T has occasionally boasted of its profitability.)
Doctor is not bullish on the industry. There is one word for what has happened: "devaluation," says Doctor.
Comments