Rocky Mountain News owner E.W. Scripps Co. said Thursday that a decision on the struggling newspaper’s future will be announced by the end of March.
Scripps reported in an earnings release that the News lost $16 million last year and that Scripps has written down the value of its Colorado newspaper operations by $10.9 million.
Scripps had announced Dec. 4 that it was putting the newspaper up for sale and acknowledged that it might be closed if a buyer wasn’t found.
Chief executive Rich Boehne said Thursday that “you’ll hear news from us on this before the end of (March) for sure, and not too far out.”
Asked by JPMorgan financial analyst Alexia Quadrani how much it would cost to shut down the News, Boehne said Scripps is “not far enough along to give you an exact number of what it would cost to shut down or exit the market.”
“One of the reasons for that is it’s not clear to us as we sit here today which way we might go and what our method of exit might be,” Boehne said. “So it’s probably just a little bit premature, but I can tell you it’s not a number that would materially change our plans at this point.”
Cincinnati-based Scripps has not disclosed if it received any credible offers to buy the News, nor has it said how it would plan to exit from the joint operating agreement in which it shares business operations with The Denver Post. The two newspapers jointly carry about $130 million in debt.
Scripps owns 17 newspapers and 10 television stations across the country. It reported a fourth-quarter operating loss of $19.4 million, compared with a profit of $44.7 million in the same period the previous year, largely because of weakness in advertising.
For the full year, Scripps reported an operating loss of $937 million. Most of that loss stemmed from when Scripps in the second quarter of 2008 wrote down the value of its newspapers by $874 million.
Classified-advertising revenue in the newspaper division had the biggest decline, dropping more than 31 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007.
Online ad sales fell 13 percent.
Advertising revenue at Scripps television stations dropped 27 percent.
“It became apparent toward the end of the year there’s nowhere left to hide from the national economic crisis,” Boehne said. “We’re feeling the pain as the recession rolls its way through our local markets and media businesses.”
Scripps shares fell 9 cents Thursday, or 6 percent, to close at $1.41.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
