Posted on 05/03/2013 8:19:04 AM PDT by abb
Washington Post Co. (WPO) reported Friday an 84% drop in first-quarter profit amid one-time charges and a loss from discontinued operations.
Decreases in print advertising and circulation at its namesake paper have weighed on the newspaper and education company’s earnings in recent years. Washington Post announced in March that it will begin charging readers for access to its paper’s website, after raising circulation prices in January.
The company’s profit tumbled to $5.2 million, or 64 cents a share, from $31.5 million, or $4.07 a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue remained level at $959.1 million and operating expenses were also flat.
Discontinued operations, which posted a year-ago profit of $17.6 million, swung to a loss of $1.4 million.
The quarter also was weighed down by restructuring at Washington Post’s Kaplan division, the largest top-line contributor. The company is merging some campuses and halting enrollments at others, moves that are expected to cost $18 million in restructuring charges in the second half of 2013.
In the latest period, the education division narrowed its operating loss but posted a 3% decline in revenue to $527.8 million. Enrollment slid 8.3% excluding closed campuses, or 12% overall.
Washington Post said its newspaper-publishing segment saw revenue fall 4%, as print advertising revenue from the namesake paper decreased 8% to $48.6 million. Daily and Sunday circulation fell 7.2% and 7.7%, respectively.
Online publishing revenue, which largely includes washingtonpost.com and Slate, rose about 8% to $25.8 million amid a 16% increase in display online advertising revenue. Online classified advertising revenue fell 6%.
The cable television business recorded revenue growth of 5.2%.
Shares were trading 1.15% lower at $447.30 in early morning trading.
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/05/03/washington-post-1q-net-tumbles-84/#ixzz2SF8mCVRt
I read WaPo online and readers comments.
It is 80-90% leftist, some extremely so. Typical of the Washington DC bubble.
Cancel your subscription NOW.
I couldn’t help but read this as:
“Washington Post IQ Tumbles 84%”
GRRRRRREAT news! Thanks for the ping/post.
DEFUND socialist collectives, foreign and domestic.
I have a friend that makes his entire living off of publishing those freebee advertisement throw-aways (seen in laudromats) for the explicit purpose of publishing legal notices. He was able to legitimize the “newspapers” by inserting news stories that college newspapers get, along with one or two “original” news stories about something going on in the area.
Thos legal notices bring in a very pretty penny.
I grew up in a very beautiful but almost entirely rural county that has been hit pretty hard by trade policy. Twenty years ago, only the southern end of the county commuted out, it was a “bedroom community” for the urban area to the south. The remainder stayed in the county, but no longer.
There were three weekly newspapers then, one for every town, now there’s just one for the whole county. The majority of it is comprised of legal notices. My mother still subscribes but says it’s only good for the obituaries. She wants to know if an acquantance, former coworker or distant relation passes.
Nothing else worth reading in there anymore, she says.
Here in Louisiana, every time the Legislature puts a bill in to allow local governmental entities (towns, school boards, parishes, water districts, etc) to put their legal notices online, the Louisiana Press Association swings into action. Publishers and editors head to Baton Rouge to swarm the committee hearings and sting the proposed bills to death.
I need someone to tell me how a newspaper can objectively cover a school system or town government if the newspaper depends on that very agency for survival?
Here’s a story in North Carolina where such a bill is being heard in their legislature at this year’s session.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/16/3986623/press-attorney-newspapers-targeted.html
Press attorney: newspapers targeted by bill on legal ads
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