1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Is Gannett close to acquiring Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by old_tony, Oct 7, 2015.

  1. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    This isn't a good deal for workers, but a real good deal for Gannett. They'll be able to reduce costs, maximize market foothold and probably sell off the non-clusterable properties to pay this deal off in about five years if the $30 mil per year profit from the JMC is accurate. Hell, the real estate alone is probably worth more than $280 million.
     
  2. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    "Managing the decline." Ugh.
     
  3. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    Madison is Lee.
     
  4. Bronco77

    Bronco77 Well-Known Member

    The Journal Media papers have a copy editing/design hub in Corpus Christi, Texas, that was established about five years ago when Scripps owned the papers. Wonder what will happen there -- will it become another Gannett studio, or will it close?

    In my neck of the woods, Gannett now will own four papers whose circulation areas are adjacent to each other and even overlap a bit -- Fort Myers and Naples on the west coast of Florida, and Treasure Coast Newspapers (Stuart, Port St. Lucie, Vero Beach) and Florida Today (Brevard County) on the east coast. I'd expect quite a bit of consolidation, with staffing taking a hit.
     
  5. mb

    mb Active Member

    As someone on a JMG copy/design desk ... how does this work? Are all the designers dead? What about copy editors? Dead, too?
     
  6. studthug12

    studthug12 Active Member

    Designers are off site. I work in the Central WI hub and design studio is in Des Moines. Copy editors, you sir are funny. Nope, they are called producers now and there aren't very funny of them. Basically the design studio in Des Moines is laying out pages and producers are webbing and working on internet and giving final OK on pages. Basically page proofing or can ask them to use different photo, etc. Pretty bare bones in Central too. Walk in and maybe 5 desks are filled in news/sports area.
     
  7. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    I glanced at the corporate reports of the Journal and Gannett appears to be paying five times EBIDTA.

    When the LA Times bought San Diego last spring they only fired nine of the approximately 175 editorial staffers (though I suspect that more have recently or soon will be fired in San Diego as part of the Tribune cutbacks.) But 40% of the rest of the San Diego staff, 169 in total, were fired within a week. I suspect Gannett will not be so gentle with editorial in this acquisition but will benchmark the 40% reduction in non-editorial (though admittedly much of this was from combining printing which may not always be possible). I don't know what the San Diego paper had been cash flowing but the Trib paid 85 million. If you assume they paid five times EBITDA like Gannett did for the Journal, or 17 million, and the Tribune company can save 10 million more annually in costs then EBITA rises to about 27 million, which is one/third of the purchase price.

    If Gannett gains experience in centralization and can achieve significant savings which enables them to start to buy more and more papers at three or four times post-consolidation cash flow they will take over the newspaper world.
     
  8. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    Really? Gannett is one of those companies that lives to make employees' lives hell before they lay them off. To all the Gannett managers on here who have implemented Gannett policies on "unsuspecting" reporters/copy editors/sports editors (I mean sports writing coaches) how do you live with yourselves? Please explain.
     
  9. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    I'm no Gannett fanboy at all, but the economics of the deal are good for the bottom line when you look at it from a numbers perspective. From a humanity or journalism perspective, it's terrible.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page