Trib’s April revenues; more layoffs to come?
May 29, 2007 at 3:43 pm by Wayne GarciaSince the Tampa Tribune laid off 70 employees in April, I’ve heard from some suvivors of those cuts that they expect another round this fall, that they’ve been all but told to expect it by their bosses. If the latest Media General financials for the month of April are any indication, there are indeed rougher times ahead.
The April revenue report continues to show that the Trib is a tremendous drag on Media General’s publishing division, where revenues were down 6.5 percent in April 2007 vs. one year ago. All other Media General divisions made money; the fledgling revenues of the online division even rose by more than one-third over April 2006.
Some lowlights from the report, released last week:
- Classified advertising revenues — jobs, auto and real estate mostly — at the Trib were 35 percent lower than one year ago.
- National display ads were up 11 percent, thanks to heavy spending by Verizon to tout its new fiber optic services.
- Ad linage — the number of column inches of ads sold in April 2007 — was down 24 percent over a year ago. It’s down that same percentage on a year-to-date basis.
- Tribune revenues were down 15 percent overall.
That kind of bad financial news has combined with the voluntary departure of Trib writers such as Michael Fechter, Mari Robyn Jones (night cops reporter, going to grad school after some travel) and Richard Lardner (military affairs, got a national job with the Associated Press) to create a pall among some Trib scribes.
Finally, there is digital hope:
- The good news: The Trib’s online sister, TBO.com, posted up a 35 percent increase in page views, to more than 22 million in the month of April. The downside: Online revenues are a fraction of the $$ brought in by the publishing and broadcasting divisions. In other words, readers are finding news and info online; but advertisers aren’t buying it — yet.
(Note: The St. Petersburg Times is a privately held company and doesn’t release its financial performance, so no comparison with the Trib’s numbers.)
