McClatchy reports $2.1 million loss in Q1
You may recall that McClatchy execs were at the top of our newspaper compensation chart with 38.2% raises last year. So how are they steering the company? Here’s what McClatchy reported today:
* The newspaper chain lost $2.1 million in the first quarter vs. $2 million a year ago.
* Revenue fell 5.1% in the quarter from the same period of 2011, while ad sales fell 6.8%.
* The good news: Digital ad sales were up 2.7%. (The company says digital advertising now makes up 22.2 percent of its total ad picture.)
* McClatchy posts loss in first quarter | Press release
* How newspaper executives were compensated in 2011
It’s impressive that digital makes up such a big percentage of McClatchy’s revenue. They do deserve credit for that. However, digital growth of less than 3% in the quarter is not impressive. All the publicly held chains have reported significant slowdowns in the growth of digital advertising. Instead of getting double digits, they’re getting single digits. Meanwhile, their print revenue continues to drop by 5%, 7%, 9% (McClatchy’s print revenue was down 9.2% in the first quarter, a fact not highlighted in their press release). Newsosaur just did a post showing that the newspaper industry as a whole has 10% of the digital ad market vs. 17% a decade ago. (Of course, it’s a larger market in absolute terms.) So I’m underwhelmed by McClatchy’s report.