The Well’s Book Value: $200K; No Buyer Yet

Salon.com-owned The Well, the pioneering online discussion forum, has not yet found a buyer, according to Salon’s latest 10-Q filing. “Salon has not found a suitable buyer for this asset, which has a book value of approximately $0.2 million, most of which is goodwill. The potential sale of The Well is not primarily driven by a need to generate cash to finance Salon’s operations, but is primarily intended to free management to concentrate on Salon’s core operations.” Related: Salon Media Puts The Well On The Block

Also, the penny-stock company reported its Q4 earnings, and it still doesn’t look any better. It has a net loss $0.9 million compared to a net profit of $0.4 million in the year-ago quarter. The results were significantly impacted by a non-cash preferred deemed dividend charge of $1.0 million from the issuance of preferred stock during the quarter, the company said.

Total revenues $2.1 million, a decrease of 4% from $2.2 million a year ago, with ad revenues increasing 4% to $1.38 million from $1.33 million a year ago. However, due to a decrease in subscriptions, Salon Premium revenues declined to $0.5 million compared to $0.6 million a year ago.

Meanwhile, also from its SEC filing above, a shocking decline in subscribers:…more in extended entry..


“Paid one year subscriptions were approximately 14,800 and 46,700 for the three and nine months ended December 31, 2005, respectively, compared to approximately 25,700 and 66,000 for the three and nine months ended December 31, 2004. Salon had approximately 69,700 paying subscribers at December 31, 2005 compared to a peak of approximately 89,100 at December 31, 2004. The larger number of paid one year subscribers in 2004 was primarily attributable to capitalizing on reader
interest in Salon’s political coverage during the 2004 election year, with no
comparable event taking place this year. Salon is unsure if it will be able to
stem this decline during the first six months of calendar year 2006. “

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