Why Gannett 86’ed media
GANNETT
Chief Executive Robert Dickey tossed all media from a company conference call on Thursday, shortly after saying he was not going to address recent “press speculation” about his company’s talks to acquire Tronc.
It wasanoddmovefor tworeasons. First, nearly every company allows the media to listen to its quarterly with Wall Street to discuss its results.
Second, Dickey
Hours after the media got the old heave-hofromthecall, a possible reason for Dickey’s testiness emerged: Several banks were withdrawing their support for Gannett’s proposed $1 billion deal, Bloomberg reported.
The banks are concerned the two companies are not all that healthy.
Since April, Gannett, ownerofUSA Today and more than 100 other papers, has been trying to buy Tronc, formerly Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Baltimore Sun and other papers.
News that the deal was imperiled sent shares of both companies skidding to 52-week lows.
Gannett tumbled 17 percent, to $8.21. Tronc cratered 28 percent, to $12.27.
Gannett was said to be ready to pay $18.75 a share for Tronc.
One ambitious analyst managed to ask Dickey about possible deals.
“I think we remain committed to our strategy of building out our local footprint . . . as well as the impact that has on the goal of being the largest digital news network under the USA Today network banner,” said Dickey, who noted that any deal “comes downto making sure these are accretive to shareholders andthe financing terms make sense for the company.”
Seemingly stymied with the Tronc deal, at least one major Gannett shareholder wants the company to buy back shares — and call off the pursuit for Tronc — to boost the sagging stock price, one source tells The Post’s Josh Kosman.
The Gannett board was said to be trying to pull the deal together for Thursday morning to have something to offset a down quarterly report. Nodeal was announced. In the quarter, Gannett reported operating profit fell 10.1 percent, to $772.3 million. It posted a net loss of $24.2 million.
Tronc reports its quarterly results on Nov. 1.
Daily News staffers are growing more nervous by the day.
New Editor-in-Chief Arthur “Chucky” Browne is said to be exploring a moveofupto40jobs to a facility in the Jersey City printing plant.
In addition, 15 to 30 newsroom jobs at the struggling tabloid will be eliminated between Election Day and Thanksgiving, sources said.
The New Jersey news operation was supposed to be a temporary fix implemented in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, which flooded the paper’s Lower Manhattan office.
Nowit appears that NewYork’s socalled “hometown paper” will have a good number of staffers on the other side of the Holland Tunnel.
Calls made to Browne, who took over from Jim Rich last week, and Chief Executive William Holiber, were not returned.
Exuberance, a new design magazine aimed at the gay market, is set to debut next spring in NewYork.
Davler Media Group, headed by CEO David Miller, who publishes City Guide and Big Apple Parent, is launching the title with the tagline “Design in living for LGBT.”
Thequarterly is set to debut in February 2016.
Miller has tapped Jason Kontos, a top editor at glossies at Hearst for more than two decades, as editor-inchief. Kontos was decoratingg editor of House Beautiful and editor-in-chief of Colonial Homes and Classic Home, as well as executive editor of Country Living and Victoria in a 24year career at Hearst.
For the past eight years, he’s been editor-in-chief of New York Spaces at Davler.
“It’s a lot of home, but there are several pages on fashion and watches,” said Kontos, adding that “we’ll have a story on Cher’s decorator, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, in the first issue.”
Roughly 40,000 mostly free copies will be circulated in New York City. There will be limited newsstand distribution, with copies priced at $6.99.
Miller said if it is successful here, he will consider launching similar magazines in Miami and Los Angeles. Chip and Joanna Gaines, already stars of the HGTV show “Fixer Upper,” have emerged as the hottest figures in the publishing world in recent weeks — with the top-selling book in the country last week. “TheMagnolia Story,” written with Mark Dagostino, debuted at No. 1, selling 121,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen BookScan. Publishers Weekly said publisher Thomas Nelson has gone back on press for another printing, boosting the total number of copies in print to 1 million. Two weeks ago, the couple, who buy homes in and around Waco, Texas, and then flip them, graced the cover of People. Meredith upped distribution of their magazine, Magnolia Journal, 50 percent, to 600,000, based on those successes.