Interactive remains the bright spot for Tribune Company (TRB) … online revenues for 2Q06 were $57 million, up 27 percent over 2Q05. Overall, revenues dipped 1 percent to $1.43 billion while earnings per share declined to 53 cents per share from 72 cents per share. For some perspective on interactive’s actual contribution, that 1 percent overall revenue drop equaled $20 million.
From the earnings call transcript:
— Tribune Interactive’s online traffic was up 24 percent year over year; the network of more than 50 websites averaged over 14 million monthly uniques during 2Q.
— Chairman and CEO Dennis FitzSimons: “CareerBuilder had a great second quarter with network and affiliate revenues up 42 percent over last year. CB reached 22 million unique visitors in June and it had a 40 percent share of total listings compared to Monster’s 37 percent. And we continue to have positive discussions with McClatchy about their newspapers participating in CareerBuilder.”
— FitzSimons went into a little detail about interactive plans based on a network/local affiliate model. “We intend to make our local newspaper sites more robust including increased use of video and user-generated content. We intend to expand Metromix, an entertainment vertical has been very successful here in Chicago, to other markets, and acquire additional businesses like ForSaleByOwner.com that will add to our portfolio of faster growing Internet businesses.”
— He reiterated the plan to more than double percentage of publishing ad revenue by 2010 to the 12-15 percent range.
— Asked during q-and-a about online-print help-wanted pricing, FitzSimon’s said “What we have done is aggressively raise online prices; the print price is relatively stable. If you look at a big market today you will see an average print ad cost about what average online ad costs.”
Update: BW: “Iif the Chandlers still want to squawk about poor performance and strategy, there’s little in Tribune’s current results that disproves their contentions. … Net income tumbled 62%, to $87.8 million, although the company emphasized the results from continuing operations. Not counting assets that the company plans to sell, profits declined 29%, to $164.0 million.”
Release | Charts | Webcast | Transcript
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