Some analysts to the new companies as GoodCo and BadCo.
The one with the newspapers is BadCo, of course.
News Corp hasn't reported earnings for its fiscal year that just ended, but according to Carr
Michael Nathanson of Nomura Securities estimated in a note to investors that earnings before interest and taxes in the entertainment business would be up 17 percent, while earnings for publishing would be down 44.5 percent for the full year.
The newspaper/education division will start out without any debt and $1 billion in cash on hand, but even that may not be enough:
The Times of London and The Sunday Times are buried in losses. Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research, estimated that legal costs associated with the hacking scandal would be over $300 million this year and next. Others estimate that payouts to victims of the scandal could reach as much as $1 billion. Brett Harriss, an analyst with Gabelli & Company, told Bloomberg that he thinks The New York Post loses as much as $110 million a year. The Australian properties have already been publicly targeted for a big reorganization.
Wow - a $110 million a year in losses.
The editorial writers at the Post like to talk in Social Darwinian terms about public schools - succeed at test scores or die.
And yet, the primary Social Darwinian measure of success for their own newspaper - profit - shows that the paper should have been shut down a long time ago.
Without the cash from the entertainment division to bolster the newspaper, it sure looks like the Post is DOA now.
Murdoch kept the Post for his political agenda which included bashing teachers and supporting educational reform. He was not as concernded with losing money since he was fighting a war against teachers and the UFT. For Murdoch, the annual loss of $110 million was a calculated long term political and economic investment.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say is true - but now he can no longer sustain that loss.
ReplyDeleteWithout the Post, who will tell us how awful we are? Can the editorial writers at the News and the Times do that all by themselves? I'm not sure it will be a balanced perspective with just the two major papers bashing the crap out of us.
ReplyDeleteThe News is even worse now - former Murdoch employee and hacking criminal Colin Myler has turned it into a combo supermarket tabloid and British rag. But in between all the stories about people having live worms taken out of their eyes in Sri Lanka, they're still bashing teachers over at the News.
ReplyDeleteDid not see one word mentioned in the Post or DN about the city challenging the arbitrators decision to hold for the unions in the turnaround school decision. What's up with that? Is this story not newsworthy because it is a loss for the Bloomberg administration?
ReplyDeleteGoogle "Harlem couple branded professional agitators"....I wonder if this is covered today in Bloombergs professional toilet paper rags? It's the story of how the NYPD actually has published a Harlem couples home address and phone number on a website...and put a warning poster up at the
ReplyDeleteLocal precinct. Their crime...? Videotaping cops stopping and frisking....THIS they have time for....videotaping...Try and report a crime to the precinct house and see the shit they give you...Bloombergs NY....fear and loathing from the oligarchy....
"personal toilet paper rag"
ReplyDeleteOh well, there goes the "We publish trash because that's what people want" argument.
ReplyDeleteFrom the very first, The Post was Murdoch's platform for spreading his right wing fever dreams, and little more.
It will be interesting to see if Klein gets tapped to run the new BadCo division of News Corp. I till also be interesting to see how our friendly Posties feel about layoffs and closing when it happens to their own newspaper.
ReplyDeleteLet's use the same rationale they use to close schools and bash teachers.
ReplyDeleteMinus $110 million a year? Must be the poor performance of the reporters. Let's see their data reports. How much money did each one force the Post to lose? and the editorial staff. And Murdoch himself for supporting a loser.