Media Watch

GateHouse-Globe trial postponed; Globe's 1/2 price sale; Another newspaper folds; Globe at 1/2 price; Local weekly parent almost bankrupt

TODAY's newspaper quote: "GateHouse Media stock could be worthless." - Morningstar analyst Tom Corbett, writing when GateHouse (OTC: GHSE.PK) shares were trading for a little more than $1. GateHouse Media opened Monday at 4 cents a share.

 GateHouse's Kansan to cease print publication after 88 years

The Kansas City Kansan will no longer be publishing a printed newspaper after Jan. 10.
The website will continue to be operated as a news source by GateHouse Media, the national publishing company that owns the newspaper. The final printed issue of the Kansan on Jan. 10 will fall just a few weeks short of the newspaper's 88th anniversary... Kansan.

GateHouse, NY Times trial postponed
Local newspapers' parent vs Boston Globe now Jan. 24

A federal judge has pushed back the trial date for GateHouse Media's lawsuit against the parent company of Boston Globe until Jan. 26 at the request of both companies.

GateHouse, which publishes 125 papers in Massachusetts, sued the New York Times Co., owner of the Boston Globe and Boston.com, earlier this month, complaining that it violated copyright law and other statutes by routinely posting the headlines and first sentences from GateHouse stories, along with links to full articles, on Boston.com's new community web sites... Globe.
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Signs of the Times (and Globe)

One of our reporters emailed me Wednesday saying, "I decided a ride to Shaws for some basics, cabin fever set in, As we entered Shaws in Hyannis we were greeted by a man that was handing out $20.00 shopping cards if you were will to sign up to try The Boston Globe at a discounted 50% off price. Sign of the times?
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2008: The Year Newspaper Stocks became worth less than the paper they were once printed on
Gatehouse Media now has a market cap of only $2.3 million

How bad was 2008 for the newspaper industry in the United States?  The industry trade journal, Editor & Publisher, calculated the stock price movements, and the word massacre doesn't fully describe it:

• GateHouse Media (which owns 8 Cape Cod weeklies), down 99%
• Journal Register Co., down 99%
• Lee Enterprises, down 97%
• McClatchy, down 94%
• Media General, down 92%

Gannett Co which owns non-newspaper assets as well as newspapers dropped 80% and the New York Times Company was the best performer losing only 59% of its value. Notably the Dow only dropped 36% for the year.

Of those, Gatehouse Media now has a market cap of only $2.3 million, despite publishing
hundreds of papers.

The only question now is: how many will be left on the list by the end of 2009.