You know it's over ...

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
when your stock price drops below the cost of the product you sell.

February 17, 2009, 3:07 pm
Sign Of The Times
Posted by Bob O'Brien

DECLINING MARKET VALUE REFLECTS DUBIOUS AD ENVIRONMENT

One sign of how desperate things have gotten at the New York Times (NYT): the share price is cheaper than it costs to purchase a copy of the Sunday paper in New York City.

Shares dropped below $4 in Tuesday’s trading, reaching an all-time low for the stock. That’s south of the $4 cover price that the paper commands at New York City news vendors. (Newsstands themselves have become about as rare as a good quarter of ad spending.)

The downturn in the housing and automotive markets, coupled with the overall economic recession, have cut sharply into advertising revenues, and effectively ruined the model for newspaper operations. When the Times reported its fiscal fourth quarter late last month, it said its net plunged 48% on a year-over-year basis, as ad revenues declined 18% in the period. The company has looked for non-core assets to sell, and has hired bankers to organize the disposition of its partially owned sports operations, which include the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Stadium.

Still, as the poisonous ad-spending market continues to wreak havoc on the operations of newspaper publishers, it’s a wonder whether there won’t be a time when shares of the Times meets the price newsstands charge for the daily paper, currently pegged at $1.50.
 

spike

New Member
when your stock price drops below the cost of the product you sell.

That's completely incorrect Jim. Many successful companies have stock that sells for WAY less than their products.

But yeah, shares on all publicly traded newspaper companies have fallen in the last year.
 
Even if the economy was booming most newspapers are on life support anyway. With electronic communication replacing them, only older people even read them anymore.
 
But the point is it is a dying art. Give it 20 years and I doubt there is anything but perhaps a very small handfull of actual newspapers.

To guage the state of the economy by the state of the newspaper business is ludicrous.
 

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
But the point is it is a dying art. Give it 20 years and I doubt there is anything but perhaps a very small handfull of actual newspapers.

To guage the state of the economy by the state of the newspaper business is ludicrous.
That's what they said about paper a decade ago, and five years ago, and a few years ago when ebook readers came out, or when pdf's became more secure and signeable..but you won't be seeing many filing-cabinets on teh side of the road anytime soon...if ever.

I'll agree that many newspapers are placing more of an emphasis on their electronic/web publications - but that doesn't eliminate the need for people to actually hold a newspaper in their hands and flip through it. Some newspapers have actually reversed the process and removed digital media in favour of print media.
 

catocom

Well-Known Member
paper in the work place...booking-wise...will always have a place.
Gotta have backup if you loose power for any length of time.

Newspapers are a whole other thing.
 

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
Still a very large amount of places where you can go with a newspaper tucked under your arm where you can't go with a laptop and guaranteed WiFi access. There's a small percentage of the population that uses the netz for news exclusively. Television and radio failed to replace newspapers. The internet might be snazzier than both of those competitors put together, but I don't think that it'll be enough. Eventually, it'll take a bigger chunk of the pie in the 'first world' and the upper to middle-class newsies, but I don't see it taking over completely anytime soon - if ever.
 
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