New York Times Co. Faces Leadership Vacuum - Bloomberg

The departure of New York Times Co. (NYT) Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson last month leaves the company with a leadership vacuum amid falling revenue, profit squeezed by pension costs and pressure from family members to restore a dividend once worth more than $20 million a year.

Robinson, 61, was pushed out by Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his cousin Michael Golden, said a person familiar with the situation. Golden, who is chief operating officer, just lost part of his responsibilities when the company sold the regional newspaper division he’d run and will take on new duties, said the person, who wouldn’t be named because the matter is private.

Times Co. is looking for a non-family member to be CEO, making it unlikely the 62-year-old Golden will take on that role, said two people familiar with the matter. Robinson will receive an exit package totaling more than $21 million, higher than previously reported, said the people, who wouldn’t be named because the information isn’t public.

The departure comes as Times Co. struggles with a slide in traditional print revenue on top of pension and interest costs that leave little to invest in its future. Last year, about 70 percent of its estimated $237 million operating profit went to pension contributions and interest costs, compared with 19 percent in 2007, according to company statements.

“It’s a disturbing trend, and it does call into question the long-term viability of the company,” said Robert Willens, an accounting specialist at consultant Robert Willens LLC.

Sulzberger, Golden and Robinson declined to comment.

Profit Declines

Times Co., which is scheduled to announce fourth-quarter results on Feb. 2, is projected to report revenue for last year of $2.33 billion, a 2.7 percent decline from 2010. That would make the sixth year in a row of sliding sales.

Profit, excluding what the company calls extraordinary items, dropped in the first three quarters of last year, and is projected to slide in the fourth quarter, to 41 cents a share, from 46 cents a year earlier. Net income, without adjustments, rose in the third quarter due to charges in 2010 related to the Boston Globe and pension withdrawals.

Times Co.’s share price has fallen 84 percent since 2004, including a 25 percent slide over the last year.

“The stock is kind of stuck in no-man’s land,” and the absence of a CEO is part of what’s keeping it there, said Douglas Arthur, an analyst with Evercore Partners Inc. (EVR) “’Who’s the next CEO?’ That’s what everyone’s wondering.”

Sulzberger In Europe

Sulzberger said the board will conduct a search inside and outside the company for a new CEO. The 11 directors include four members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which controls the board with 90 percent of the Class B shares.

In the meantime, the 60-year-old chairman is serving as interim CEO amid internal concerns about his travels overseas, according to two people familiar with the matter. In the last 19 months, Sulzberger has attended at least a dozen conferences and panels in Istanbul, Beijing, Munich, London, Paris and Switzerland where his girlfriend, Claudia Gonzalez, works. His trips are aimed at establishing Times Co. as a global brand, said Robert H. Christie, head of corporate communications.

Sulzberger, who took over as chairman in 1997, has championed investments in digital technologies, including the effort to begin charging readers for access to the namesake newspaper’s articles on the Web. The so-called paywall, which went up in March, has bolstered advertising and lifted paying digital subscribers to 324,000 as of the end of September.

Still, the effort hasn’t been enough to offset the drop in print advertising. Evercore’s Arthur estimates it brought in about $33 million last year and expects $71 million this year.

“We’re in a very challenged sector,” Sulzberger said in an interview last month about how digital platforms could choke off access to news content. “We can’t pretend we aren’t.”

Ochs-Sulzberger Dividend

Times Co.’s flagship newspaper, which is driven largely by national advertising campaigns, isn’t benefiting as much from the resurgence in local retail advertising as Gannett Co. (GCI) and McClatchy Co. (MNI), Arthur said.

Total advertising revenue was down 8.8 percent to $261.8 million in the third quarter, with print dropping 10 percent and digital falling 4.5 percent. The company has lost more than 80 percent of its market value from a high of about $8.5 billion in 1999 to its current value of $1.18 billion. It has not paid dividends to shareholders for the past three years.

Some family members repeatedly pressed Robinson and Sulzberger to restore the payouts, according to person familiar with the matter who didn’t want to be named because the matter is private. In 2007, family members received $23.7 million in dividend payments, based on company filings and Bloomberg Data. In 2008, the last year the company paid dividends, the family received $20.5 million.

Family members have no intention of selling Times Co., Sulzberger said in the interview last month.

New York Times’s Independence

The company has reduced its debt by more than $500 million in the last 10 quarters, using proceeds from the sale of a portion of its stake in Fenway Sports Group, according to a report from CreditSights Inc. The company also re-paid the $250 million, 14 percent interest loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim in August, three and a half years ahead of schedule.

Craig Huber, a media analyst who has followed the Times for 17 years, believes the company will continue to divest subsidiaries, pay down debt, and possibly wind up solely with its core asset, the New York Times newspaper and its related digital properties.

“I think anything and everything is for sale at the right price,” said Huber, now principal of Huber Research Partners in Greenwich, Connecticut. “The mission is to keep the flagship independent. The risk is that most of its revenue still comes from print, not digital.”

Buyout Offers

The company decided not to sell both the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspapers last year when a bid emerged, according to The New York Times website. The company bought the Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993. The company also owns About.com, which it purchased for $410 million in 2005. Its regional newspaper group, which it sold to Halifax Media Holdings LLC for $143 million, had been its worst-performing unit with revenue falling an average of 12.5 percent year over year since 2006, according to an analysis by CreditSights.

Times Co. began offering buyout packages in October to eliminate 20 newsroom positions at its namesake newspaper and is also pushing for a pension freeze for some New York Times employees, a move that rankled the newsroom, according to Newspaper Guild of New York President Bill O’Meara.

‘Just Digital’

The Guild, representing almost 1,100 employees at the New York Times, said the company sought to re-open negotiations a day after Robinson’s departure was announced, as part of its plan to cut long-term pension payments. Robinson’s exit package, which includes her pension, supplemental retirement income, consulting fee and stock grants, doesn’t sit well with newsroom employees, according to O’Meara. Even with a pension freeze for currently employed Guild members, O’Meara estimates Times Co. would still have to pay about $20 million to $25 million each year to honor prior obligations.

Key to the Times Co.’s future is finding a new CEO with digital expertise, said Ken Doctor, media analyst for Newsonomics and Outsell Inc.

“The question for Arthur now is, ‘How do they take the next step in the digital evolution?,’’ Doctor said. ‘‘How do they turn a company that is still largely a print plus digital enterprise into a sustainable company that’s just digital?’’

The company should focus on the flagship brand as the print enterprise inevitably declines, he said.

‘‘The sword that’s hanging over the neck of the next CEO is the death spiral of print advertising,’’ Doctor said. ‘‘That’s the challenge.’’

To contact the reporters on this story: Edmund Lee in New York at elee310@bloomberg.net; John Helyar in Atlanta at jhelyar@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net

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via bloomberg.com

Posted January 27, 2012
 

Some things just can't wait

DALLAS -- Dallas police said William Palmer, stabbed his wife and his in-laws to death on Thursday morning. Palmer and his wife Donya Palmer, 47, separated about a week ago according to police. She was staying at her parents’ home in the 2100 block of Peavy Road.  

Around 6 a.m. Donya went outside to her car. Palmer was apparently waiting for her. Police said he chased her into the home with a knife in hand. 

Police said Donya was stabbed first. Her parents, Raymond and Mary Davis, heard her screams. 

“He attacks her and then he begins to stab her,” said Lt. David Pughes, Dallas Police Department. “Her father, who is 69-years-old came out and he was subsequently stabbed also by the suspect. At that time the mother, who is 76-years-old, can out to try and see what the commotion was and she was also stabbed.”

Donya’s sister and niece were also in the home at the time. Palmer stabbed the sister in the arm, but she was able to get away. She grabbed her daughter and ran for safety as Palmer roamed through the house searching for the two survivors.

Police arrived within four minutes of that 911 calls, but Palmer had already left the premises. 


POSTSCRIPT:    The killer was arrested a short time later while picking up a breakfast burrito at a nearby Taco Bueno drive-thru.  All that stabbing really works up a guy's appetite.

Posted January 27, 2012
 

Dublin dole office bans jammies

Jammies

From the BBC:

A social welfare office in Dublin has banned interviewees from wearing pyjamas.

A notice has appeared at Damastown social welfare office which warns claimants that "pyjamas are not regarded as appropriate attire when attending Community Welfare Service at these offices".
It is believed the decision was made after a number of people complained.
It is not the first time sleep wear has made headlines.
Two years ago, Joe McGuinness, the principal of St Matthew's Primary School, Belfast, sent a stern letter to parents saying wearing pyjamas on the school run was "slovenly and rude".
Last year a head teacher from a school in Middlesborough, England, also asked parents to get properly dressed before the school run.
The issue gained even more prominence when a Tesco store in Cardiff, Wales, put notices up asking customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot.
'Psychological aspect' Speaking to the BBC's Talkback programme, image consultant Billy Dickson said he "couldn't quite understand" Tesco's decision to ban pyjamas as he claimed the supermarket continued to receive business, although he said he supported the ban at the Dublin social welfare office.
"There is a psychological aspect and pyjamas are associated with sleeping at night and comfort in the home," he said
"You have to get into the mindset of what you are doing that day. So if you are wanting to get a job, go dressed prepared to get a job."
However, he said there was "always a contrary argument".
"The fashion houses of Paris and Milan have gone into servicing in this area," he added.
"I have witnessed people walking around Mayfair in London in their pyjamas."
Columnist Joan Birnie said night wear "should only be worn in the house".
"It's slovenly, it's wrong - pyjamas are for wearing to bed. They are definitely not for outside wear," she said.

Posted January 27, 2012
 

Ouch, but that's life

Ouch

A man evidently shot a nail into his head and didn't really notice. He is recovering. I do this every day and don't feel a thing. I'm not sure if I'm recovering or not. This is life.

Posted January 22, 2012
 

Please, take the kids

From the BBC:
Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children. One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother."

Posted January 10, 2012
 

No, you're getting a book

From the IHT/NYT:

By Kyle Jarrard

Enough is enough. No more computers, cameras or consoles. No more watches, neckties or perfumes. Heck, no dead tree, no annoying lights, no overstuffed duck, either. I’m casting an ink-and-paper pall over the holiday, whether Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa: This year we’re going to give each other a book.
A real, hold-in-your-hands paper book. Nothing more, nothing less. Already, the book edict has gone out on paperless email to the two key recipients of holiday love: my children. Noses have been turned up, derisive shrugs have been given: What a downer the old man is. A book? Come on.
Let’s get something neat! One of those deals you use to jump around doing things in front of your TV. Or a thoroughly awesome laptop, complete with designer bag! A new car would be nice, too; the one we have is so embarrassing.
Nope, 2011 will be the Year We Gave Books. It may even turn out to be memorable. Let’s take the chance. Who knows, someone might learn something. Some fantastic story, say, that doesn’t instantly decompose into its subatomic particle constituents the moment you turn away from it, or fade from memory even before it has even been thought, a bona fide tale of war, greed, money, love, hate, heartbreak, tragedy, redemption or fulfillment.
It’s going to take some convincing, however, to get the team behind this. I’ve tried hard as the leader of our pack to stay hip. I also show by example, as I’ve been known to drive the car while reading. Reading is the answer to everything, I’m fond of saying. More long stares have been given in my direction for years regarding my inability to not read, yawningly pitying contemplations of poor old dad that grew exponentially this year when I decided to make a leap.
Not off a cliff, mind you. But off the dusty, sagging bookshelf and into modern times. I now have a Kindle reader and a flock of electronic books perched upon it that flew over the rainbow on something called wi-fi and landed firmly within to be virtually leafed.
Ah ha! So why don’t you give those poor children Kindles! Bad father! These devices aren’t even that expensive any more. The books themselves — I mean, the clumps of electrons masquerading as books — are competitively priced, well, sort of. And we have wi-fi all through the house and all through the known world to snag these puppies out of the sky. So what’s the excuse?
Pepa used to take us kids fishing on the Brazos River in Texas. He really knew how to fish. And he was determined that, come hell or high water, we were going to fish right. You had to do your own stuff, tie vicious treble hooks to the line, thread the line through the eyes on the pole to the reel and not get it all tangled. If when you actually had your rig in the water you got snagged on a stump or branch, it was your problem. Either redo your line and get back fishing, or sit there and pout. This was all tough-school outdoor entertainment.
And so shall it be, well, sort of, with books: Fish or cut bait. Now is the time to accept that less is more — in fact that in the less there might be a heck of a lot more. A book allows you to time-travel, or just plain travel to real and imagined places, a not un-neat trick considering the price of airline tickets or space tourism. It allows you to meet evil, wonderful, mysterious, odd, crazy, fun, and not-fun people who often end up being more “real” in your life than real people. A simple tome of paper links you back, for instance, to the age of François I, Renaissance poet and book collector supremo, when the printing press and its wild spread across Europe was as exciting to us all as are e-books today.
Really? Heads hang far south in anticipation of all this fun, of the soberly wrapped so-called presents of 2011, of the printed lumps of coal. Bah, humbug, cheer up: I actually mean all of this stuff.
And so, not to plug authors or their works, here are my wise picks for the kids. For my daughter, graduate student in French and American law: “Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned,” a fine biography by John Farrell of one of the most creative lawyers to ever practice in the United States. And for my son, graduate student in biochemistry: “I Shall Not Hate,” by Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian doctor who lost three of his daughters and a niece to an Israeli shell but who nevertheless steadfastly campaigns for an end to Middle East killing.
As for e-books and Kindles, there’s always next year. Besides, given the rumbling negatives quaking the markets, it’s likely there won’t be any real bricks-and-mortar bookstores standing on Earth come next December anyway. If so, then, we’ll lift a full-throated toast to virtual books: May they shine bright to edify our progeny, one screen at a time.
Kyle Jarrard is a senior editor at the International Herald Tribune.

Posted December 30, 2011
 

Chihuahua rapist gets 10 years

Chihuahua_rape

I don't know how widely this has been reported, but it is a wonderful case of justice done.
I hope this Chihuahua rapist gets cornerned by a pack of the little fellers in prison.
Payback!

Posted December 30, 2011
 

Euro zone can't be fixed

From the BBC:

Ratings agency Fitch has affirmed France's top-notch AAA credit rating but has revised its outlook on the country to "negative" from "stable".

A negative outlook usually means a downgrade is possible in 12-18 months.
Fitch said the change in outlook was prompted by the heightened risk of government liabilities arising from the eurozone's debt crisis.
The agency also said it was considering downgrading ratings for Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland and Cyprus.
"Following the EU Summit on 9-10 December, Fitch has concluded that a 'comprehensive solution' to the eurozone crisis is technically and politically beyond reach," the agency said.

Posted December 17, 2011
 

Triste fin pour France Soir

From Le Monde:

On y lisait Joseph Kessel, Lucien Bodard et tant d'autres, parmi les plus grands de la profession. Au fil d'une demi-douzaine d'éditions quotidiennes, on suivait, presque heure par heure, les mésaventures de la IVe République, les grandes et les moins grandes heures du gaullisme, mais aussi le Tour, de mémorables faits divers, quelques guerres lointaines et la vie de ceux qu'on n'appelait pas encore les people, mais que nous contait chaque jour, en avant-dernière page, Carmen Tessier et ses "Potins de la commère"… Nostalgiques des "unes" fracassantes, plaquées sur cinq colonnes en gros caractères, et des photos en noir et blanc, un conseil: n'allez pas plus loin. C'est fini. La dernière édition de France Soir est parue mardi 13 décembre – 67 ans après la première.

Triste fin. Le journal mythique de Pierre Lazareff, le seul quotidien français à avoir été vendu, certains jours, dans les années 1960-1970, à plus de deux millions d'exemplaires, disparaît des kiosques sans avoir pu remercier ses derniers lecteurs. Un groupe de militants syndicaux a en effet occupé les locaux parisiens du journal, obligeant son propriétaire à arrêter, avec deux jours d'avance, l'impression du quotidien.
Triste fin qui nous rappelle qu'un journal, même le plus attachant, est mortel. Créé au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale, France Soir, héritier du Paris-Soir de Prouvost et du journal résistant Défense de la France, aura été, pour plusieurs générations de lecteurs et de journalistes, un modèle: grandes plumes, reportages, scoops et photos chocs.
Mais la formule a vieilli, et France Soir n'a pas su s'adapter. C'était le journal des "trente glorieuses", un quotidien politiquement très "légitimiste", celui d'un pays que la révolte étudiante de mai1968 va changer à jamais. Ce printemps-là justement, la radio prend le relais. Les "événements" sont couverts en direct par les reporters d'Europen0 1 et de RTL. La technologie, mais aussi l'air du temps, pousse de côté une certaine presse écrite.
La télévision et l'institutionnalisation du JT de 20 heures lui porteront un nouveau coup. La seule relation de l'événement, même la plus talentueuse, ne suffit plus. La presse grand public est sur les ondes, elle n'est plus sur le papier, ou de moins en moins. Puis viendront les radios libres, les télévisions par câble, enfin Internet, et, avec eux, la fin d'une certaine culture généraliste. France Soir papier n'y a pas survécu ; sa société éditrice veut poursuivre l'aventure sur le Net, avec une équipe réduite.
Faut-il pointer une avarie de plus sur la coque d'une presse écrite qui, depuis quelques années, a les allures d'un navire qui prend l'eau de toutes parts ? La situation est plus complexe. Les nouveaux supports numériques de l'écrit – smartphones, liseuses, etc. – ne cessent de marquer des points. L'enquête, le commentaire, l'analyse, le reportage y ont leur place. L'avenir appartient aux journaux qui savent se déployer sur le papier comme sur le Web. L'écrit est plus indispensable que jamais.

Posted December 15, 2011