John Morton
John Morton
deal outside somewhat structure
That structure is somewhat different than what we outside the deal had surmised,
camper happy price serve sure talked
I'm sure Sherman is not going to be a happy camper at 65 bucks, which is the price that's been talked about a lot. It would serve (him) right. He got this all started.
advertising consumers fairly money response spend stepping weak
This is in response to fairly weak advertising performance. Consumers are just not stepping up to spend money the way they usually do.
advertising fairly response weak
This is in response to fairly weak advertising performance,
attractive close community coverage fighting market newspapers people post share washington
It's an attractive market, which is why there are so many people fighting for market share over there. The Washington Post is never going to get down to the chicken-dinner coverage of these communities, and some of these community newspapers come close to that.
acquires daily early kept knight matter miracle newspaper profitable publish victim
An early victim would be the Philadelphia Daily News, no matter who acquires the company. It's much more profitable to publish one newspaper than two in the same market. It's a kind of miracle Knight Ridder kept it going this long.
companies company growing inherited markets newspaper tony work
Tony Ridder inherited a company that had a lot of newspaper companies that are not in growing markets and would never be in growing markets. That's what he inherited, and that's what he had to work with.
board change chosen company dramatic history lead quite terms whom
This is quite a dramatic change from what the history of the company has been in terms of whom the board has chosen to lead it.
attract bad good inclined newspaper people seem
I used to think in the good old days, all a newspaper had to do to attract circulation was to put out a better newspaper. But young people don't seem any more inclined to read a good newspaper than a bad one.
came improve known nightmare perfect pounding tony worst
It was a perfect target; Tony Ridder has known this for years and that's why he was pounding for the need to improve profitability. His worst nightmare came true.
fairly fat generally industry layoffs newspapers standards
These newspapers generally have by industry standards fairly fat news staffs, so generally the layoffs are not draconian,
Let's just say you didn't want to make Ramon Ramos mad. Ramon had your back.
acquired address appearing larger lower mirror operating papers profits size staff thrown trying typical
When Tribune acquired Times Mirror they acquired papers with much lower operating profits than Tribune papers have traditionally thrown off. The L.A. Times has a larger staff than is typical for that size of paper. They've been trying to address that without appearing to be a slash-and-burn company.
buyer chains concentration discard future goes growth markets newspaper ownership
There are only so many growth markets. As concentration of ownership goes forward, you'll see future acquisitions of newspaper chains go pretty much the way this one did: The buyer will keep the growth markets and discard the rest.