Want to own a newspaper chain? JRC stock at one penny

and

 

Serious question, where are JRC's papers?
I can't seem to find a listing...

 

Give me 200 shares, what's the worst that can happen? I look at it like the lottery, I've got just as much of a chance at cashing in on either

 

I found a state-by-state listing.
I got to be honest, the Michigan cluster looks like it would be a good buy and you could get it for next to nothing.
Some solid papers with decent circ numbers and then you have the niche products.
Gannett could snap it up. It would fit in with the other things they are doing in Michigan.

 

Well, maybe not.
Gannett already owns the Freep and the Observer and Eccentric chain. So for them to come in and buy three suburban dailies and a chain of weeklies would catch the eye of the Justice Department for anti-trust

 

Why don't we, as SportsJournalists.com, throw in a couple bucks and buy the damn thing?

Then we can run it the right way.

Come on, who's with me?

 

That $300 in the smack Berman fund could get us 30,000 shares...

 

The Michigan cluster is what got JRC in so much trouble. That's where all the debt came from, overpaying for those papers just as they tanked. The economy there is hurting a bit.

The Ohio papers, we were always told, were two of the most profitable in the entire chain.

I think the problem is JRC won't get enough for an individual property or two to cover the debt, or a significant portion of it, and who wants to buy a piece of the debt?

Selling the Lorain Morning Journal for $10 or $20 million doesn't really help a $600-million debt or whatever.

 

I like the idea of buying all the stock we can.
Can't wait to make the call to the suburban Trenton bunker: "Fellas, clear out. Take the hockey sticks with you. We own your asses."

 

Gannett already covers the market, as Slappy notes above.

The buyer it would make sense to go after the properties would be Booth/Advance.

They already own Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Flint, Bay City, Grand Rapids, Jackson and Ann Arbor. Adding Oakland/Macomb would give them a strong presence in the Detroit metro area.

No, JRC's customary galactic-class mismanagment and systematic destruction/degradation of the properties is what got them in so much trouble. Most of the Michigan papers are still turning profits on day-to-day operations. And JRC was already hundreds of millions in the hole before they bought the Michigan papers. JRC has been using the Michigan papers as a scapegoat/whipping boy/alibi/excuse since the day they made the deal.

Other favorite factors they love to use to justify declines in revenue: unexpected cold winter weather in the Northeast and Midwest, and the fact that there was no Super Bowl in Michigan in 2007.

It snows in the wintertime in the Midwest and Northeast? The Super Bowl is not in Detroit every year? Who knew??

 

It's official because it's been in The New York Times: No, nobody wants to buy your newspaper company. Or any newspaper company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/business/media/04papers.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

Well, when JRC makes that excuse, who looks stupid? JRC makes it sound like it's Michigan's fault that JRC bought those papers.