After years of
declining revenues and weeks of bitter infighting among owners, one bit of good
news emerged Tuesday about the the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News: The
newspapers may be nearly profitable again.
That “cusp of
profitability” had been rumored in the city’s media circles for several weeks.
Philly Mag this month posed the question to Mark Block, spokesman for
Interstate General Media, which owns the newspapers and Philly.com; he declined
confirmation at that time, citing IGM’s status as a “privately held company.”
But confirmation
of a sorts emerged Tuesday, as part of an explanation from Bill Ross, executive
director of the Newspaper Guild, as to why the guild had publicized its bid to
buy out one or all of IGM’s warring owners.
“They’re just
about to turn the corner and become profitable,” Ross said of the newspapers.
Guild members had already negotiated a profit-sharing program to begin in 2014,
he said, and don’t want to see that money that could go to journalists instead
spent on lawyer’s fees in the ownership battle. “We’d like to have this dispute
settled.”
Profitability, if
it occurs, would be a stunning development for a newspaper group that has been
through multiple ownership changes and steady layoffs over the last decade,
even entering a bankruptcy in 2009 that temporarily placed ownership of
Philadelphia’s newspapers in the hands of a New York-based hedge fund, which in
turn sold the operation to the current, rich-but-contrary group of local
owners. Ross said that in order to help the papers right their finances, the
company’s 11 unions together made $28 million in givebacks, with $6 million
coming from guild members.
A further insight
into the company’s health should emerge later this week: The Alliance for
Audited Media will release circulation figures for most of the country’s
largest newspapers, including the combined circulation of the Inquirer and Daily
News. While Philly circulation has declined steadily in recent years, April’s
numbers hinted at a possible turnaround: This week’s numbers should show if
that spike was an isolated outlier, or the beginning of an actual growth trend.
On Tuesday night,
Ross spoke with Philly Mag by phone and answered several questions about the
guild’s attempt to broker peace—or buy it—in the battle between the current
owners.
“We had
discussions over this weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” he said, speaking
first to the majority ownership group led by George Norcross, then the minority
group featuring Lewis Katz and Gerry Lenfest. “It was a good discussion, but
both sides at the time indicated that they did not want to sell.”
Daniel Fee, a
spokesman for IGM’s majority ownership group, confirmed the talks, and said
that group “applauded” the guild’s efforts to bring peace. But, he added: “The
majority owners neither wanted nor began this litigation. Their mission was and
is to make this a successful company and provide the type of quality journalism
that will make every employee proud and that our community deserves.”
Ross declined to
name the other potential new owners the guild would bring to the table. “They
will be named if one of the groups decides they want to sell,” he said. Ross
did say, however, that the union itself might be willing to buy into ownership.
He declined to specify how much the guild might pay to do so.
“The guild would
contemplate using guild assets if approved by the guild executive board to make
an investment of such,” he said.
In a memo
announcing the guild’s effort to buy out one of the warring ownership groups,
Ross said the ongoing battle—triggered by the firing of Inquirer editor Bill
Marimow—was compromising the credibility of the newspapers. Tuesday night, he
added that guild members are also worried about the money being spent on
litigation.
“ Anytime there’s
16 lawyers in the courtroom, that’s a lot of money,” Ross said.
“We’ve been neutral,
we remain neutral, but we’re trying to broker a deal to get things done,” he
added. “I think these are very smart businessmen that have a tremendous asset.
They need to to resolve their differences and move on.”
Source: Phillymag.com
No comments:
Post a Comment