Oklahoma
Gore Jousts, Crowd Laps It Up
New York Times to Ditch TV Stations
THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY ANNOUNCES PLAN TO SELL ITS BROADCAST MEDIA GROUP
NEW YORK, September 12, 2006 - The New York Times Company announced today that it plans to sell its Broadcast Media Group, which includes nine network-affiliated television stations and their related properties.
"The decision to explore the sale of our broadcast stations is a result of our ongoing analysis of our business portfolio," said Janet L. Robinson, president and CEO. "These are well-managed and profitable stations that generate substantial cash flows and are located in attractive markets. We believe a divestiture would allow us to sharpen our focus on developing our newspaper and rapidly growing digital businesses, and the synergies between them, thereby increasing the value of our Company for our shareholders."
The stations that comprise the Broadcast Media Group are:
- WHO-TV in Des Moines, Iowa (NBC); - KFSM-TV in Ft. Smith, Ark. (CBS); - WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Ala. (CBS); - WREG-TV in Memphis, Tenn. (CBS); - WQAD-TV in Moline, Ill. (ABC); - WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va. (CBS); - KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla. (NBC); - KAUT-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla. (MyNetworkTV); and - WNEP-TV in Scranton, Penn. (ABC).
Last year, the Broadcast Media Group accounted for approximately 4% of the Company's total revenues. In 2006, the Company expects the Group will have revenues of approximately $150 million and operating profit of about $33 million. Depreciation and amortization is expected to be approximately $10 million for the year.
The Times Company has retained Goldman, Sachs & Co. to advise it.
There can be no assurance that any transaction will take place. Additional details will be provided when and if the Company enters into a transaction. As a matter of policy, the Company will not comment upon any proposals, discussions or rumors regarding the proposed sale.
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include national and local conditions, as well as competition, that could influence the levels (rate and volume) of retail, national and classified advertising, and other risks as detailed from time to time in the Company's publicly filed documents, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 25, 2005. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2005 revenues of $3.4 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers, nine network-affiliated television stations, two New York City radio stations and 35 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.
The Rowback Point: Malcolm Gladwell Discovers the NCAA
Gladwell is nothing if not a quick study. A week before, in writing about former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Rhett Bomar, he failed to mention the NCAA at all.
Instead, he held up Bomar--who got paid by a booster for a no-show job--as an example of America's dangerous drift toward zero-tolerance disciplinary policies in the schools. "[M]aking a fetish of personal accountability conveniently removes the need for institutional accountability," Gladwell wrote, after describing how Oklahoma was "touchy about its quarterback being 'overpaid.'"
In fact, as anyone reared in a four-down football country knows, what Oklahoma was being touchy about was the violation of the NCAA's rules against pay-for-play, which could have left the school open to serious sanctions. Knowing that the national authorities were likely to suspend Bomar (and lineman J.D. Quinn, who was kicked off for the same infraction, though Gladwell didn't mention it), the university acted first, so as to bring its program back into compliance.
Gladwell's thin-slice analysis of Oklahoma's action addressed none of this context. Instead, after accusing Oklahoma in print of irrationally scapegoating Bomar, he returned to the subject on his blog a few days later, saying he was offering "a few more thoughts" on the case that he had "mentioned, in passing."
In passing? Bomar was the lone specific example of modern zero tolerance in Gladwell's piece. Two of its six paragraphs were devoted to the Oklahoma football case--an early recap, followed by a separate callback.
And what were the few more thoughts Gladwell had come up with after publishing? "Oklahama, under the rules, had to do what they did. By being 'overpaid' Bomar violated the NCAA's rules on amateurism. His infraction is the kind of thing that gets an entire football program put on probation."
Compare the print version: "Even in Oklahoma, people seemed to think that kicking someone off a football team for having cut a few corners on his job made perfect sense."
Gladwell, on the blog, then goes on to raise the question, "[I]sn't this whole controversy more than a little nuts?"
An alternative follow-up question: Doesn't Malcolm Gladwell owe somebody a correction?
Fourth Quarter: Pop?
We don't pretend to understand things like flipping condos in Marin County or those weird speculation deals in Oklahoma that Erik Estrada advertises during daytime television.
New York is more our bag--and we still don't see a bubble here anymore than we did back in June when Jonathan Miller told us:
"The situation in New York is different in the sense that we don't have the rampant speculation, the property-flipping. It pales in comparison to what is going on nationally."In the heavily investor-driven South Florida market, which has been a major focus of recent coverage, Mr. Miller said, roughly 60 to 70 percent of sales are speculative purchases.
Still, quarterly reports from the Manhattan brokerages, which come out tomorrow, are likely to offer ammunition to both sides of the bubble debate.
Getting on board early, the Times' Willie Neuman had a few predictions on Friday: An increase in the fourth quarter of 2005 in the average Manhattan apartment price of five percent. Increases have recently been as high as 30 percent, so that's not great.He notes, as we so often do, that the average apartment price is not the best index; we'll add that often the data is bad, coming as it so often does from people with a dog in the race. But Neuman says that the averages can probably be accounted for because the upper end of the market, dominated by bigger apartments, cooled a little while studio and one-bedroom sales picked up, pulling the average price down without saying much about the market overall. read more »
We'll look at them closely and Michael will no doubt have our take on the market in this week's Manhattan Transfers column.
- Tom McGeveran
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