The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI)

Crippling debt, unimaginative management.

2-4 before people are fully on the net for information. old schoolers who like to pick up the newspaper and get ink all over them will eventually die off

The "Publishing - Newspapers (18) " tag has performed poorly. This stock is rated (1 star) last in the tag.

Cash Flow and Assets are valuable.... either Florida or California rebounds bring this solid operator back big time, or the Board (heavily weighted with McClatchy family) finds a strong buyer that pays a significant premium above today's price.
Look for 1 or both in the next yr.

Newspapers are not going to survive without going online or transforming, MNI isn't doing any of that.

Newspapers are the modern version of telegraphs. They are going to 0 unless they diversify/transform

cramer highlighted on wall of shame. newspaper company heading into the ground

VALUE LINES - WORST PERFORMING STOCKS 13 WEEKS

McClatchy is beaten to a pulp. I believe this company will eventually join forces with electronic/broadcast media, but for now this stock is strictly for long-term investors.

Newspapers enjoy certain advantages--name recognition, stability, local monopolies--but unfortunately they're glacially slow to respond to change. And yes, that is ironic in a NEWS company for crying out loud. Bloggers and TV correspondents are leading the way with investigative journalism. Newspapers do have blogs, but most are not real blogs.

The combination of our litigious, hypersensitive society and the corporatization of newspapers (Mr. Reporter, meet Mr. Bottom Line) has paralyzed this industry. Editors and publishers act as though they've been forced into a corner and all they can do is mutter "That's a nice picture Billy. Why don't you put it up on the bulletin board?"

My grandmother's advice that if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all was just fine for high school, but it's poison to a company that traffics in news. Pressure from arts organizations, political groups and big business has led to cheerleading, chamber of commerce infomercials and kittens-are-still-cute "articles" (as well as murder-is-still-bad editorials), not news reporting.

The powers that be will ALWAYS see local media as their own personal publicity department, and they will always get upset when they can't milk the paper for favorable stories. It's up to editors to stand up to them, and say: Newspapers represent the citizens, not mayors, not corporate heads, not artistic directors, not charity presidents.

It takes a leader to speak truth to power, and leaders are in short supply. Try visiting a newsroom. Blank expressions and gray hair as far as the eye can see! These disheartened journalists come to work every day like good little Bartlebys, but they're just biding their time until the elusive universal-health-care bill is signed into law. Then they're outta there.

OH IF ONLY editors would go back to it-bleeds-it-leads. Whoda thunk sensationalism would represent the good old days of newspapers? At least outrage, fear and schadenfreude have the ability to make the heart quicken.

But all is not lost. Lately newspapers have begun supplementing the daily rag with the occasional glossy niche publication for residents in tonier parts of town. (I've never heard anyone call Architectural Digest a dead tree.) I'm betting that McClatchy will someday buy a clue and partner with a company that has strong online and/or TV presence. And while they're at it, they ought to hire a few bloggers with attitude and let 'em rip.

Brilliant leadership at that company and they STILL can't find a way to make their product relevant to people with Internet access. Until they stop scratching their heads and start really making money online, this is going to be one company on the way into the grave.

I can't see the trend in the stock price righting itself until well south of $10 a share, and I doubt they will be able to maintain the dividend at current levels for more than a few more quarters as well if revenues keep declining as they are.

Sell it off for now, but it might be interesting in a year or two.

The last year has been critical for media companies -- particularly for those that are heavy on print operations. I love the people who run McClatchy. They've always been among the best in the business. But the financial model of the business is broken. It's imploding, in fact, and McClatchy will be hit harder than most because it is less diversified than most. MNI was one of the industry's on-line pioneers -- but digital products will not save an industry whose content model is "I speak, you hear."

High book value trading at 52 weeks low, is always worth a try.

Share price has been dropping since '03. Too much competition. 0.16% held by insiders.

52 week low. Also, see the fool article written today.

There's some outstanding reporting coming out of this organization. They may just catch a wave.

The McClatchy Company was formed in 1998 and is primarily a publishing company. Their major newspapers include the Star Tribune, The California Newspapers and The Carolina Newspapers among others. The company has only one reportable business segment and is the third largest US based newspaper publisher.

In December 2006, the company announced its plans to sell The Star Tribune which it had bought for around $1.2 billion ten years ago, to Avista Capital Partners for around $530 million. The company is expected to get a future cash tax benefit of $160 million related to the sale and it will also help it pay down a small portion of its debt from the Knight Ridder acquisition. The debt at the end of March should be around $2.7 billion. The Star Tribune served the Minneapolis market and it had daily subscribers of around 360,000 so this divestiture might hurt the company a little bit in terms of revenues.

In June 2006, the company had acquired Knight Ridder which publishes 32 newspapers in 29 markets. On a pro forma basis, revenues for the fourth quarter revenues were down 3.4%. Even 2006 revenues were slightly down 0.4% compared to 2005 on a pro forma basis. The advertising environment in the fourth quarter was challenging with soft retail and declining employment and automotive classified advertising. The company expects advertising revenue on a pro forma basis to be down in the first half of 2007. The company will also have to focus on paying down its enormous debt which resulted in an interest expense of $93.6 million in 2006. The publishing industry in general has had an extremely hard year with torpid ad sales, low circulation and layoffs. In such a scenario, it is highly unlikely that McClathy will have a good year ahead of it.

Repick for more accuracy points

following jim cramer

It's a newspaper, who still reads them? Circulation declines, advertising mix shift away from print. Today's news tomorrow, stale stock quotes, classifieds: Car 4sale, LikeNu, BstOff? Other than habit, why does a consumer buy a newspaper. Dead business, fork is in it, Knight RIdder acquisition provides the debt load to absorb free cash flow...terminal short.