Globe losing nearly $1m a week?
November 14, 2008 at 12:08 am
That’s what Boston Globe executives have been telling union members, according to this story by Boston Business Journal reporter Craig Douglas. That number comes from the summer, before the paper reorganized its sections and saved itself some money. On the other hand, the economy is much worse now than it was then.
As for the possibility that the Globe will soon be sold, Douglas offers this:
“Who wants to catch a falling safe?” said a source familiar with the Globe’s financials. “Nobody’s going to fund a $50 million hole in the ground.”
A falling safe with no money in it, apparently.
Bad as things may be, so far the New York Times Co. has spared Boston the chaos that has rocked other large regional papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. At some point, though, something’s got to give. (Via Universal Hub.)
5 Responses to “Globe losing nearly $1m a week?”
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What do you know. Finally, some good news!
“You’re right, Mr. Thatcher. I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place… in sixty years”
Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane
According to that Boston Business Journal article, the NYT has reduced the book value of the New England newspapers by $980 million since January 2007. That’s a period of 100 weeks, which sounds to me like it’s losing more like $10 million a week.
Book value and net income are not the same thing. The $1 million/wk loss is net/week. They’re spending more than they’re taking in. Think of the $980 million figure in terms of the difference between what your house was worth 2 years ago, and what it’s worth today.
ACF, I understand what you are saying. But trying to separate operating costs from real value has a lot to do with what got us into the current mess. (“Who cares what we’re worth, we’ll be cash-flow positive in 2 years, so give us a big loan!”) The Globe is down a billion dollars in less than 2 years, and my house is down $100,000.
The good news for me is, I didn’t take out a huge loan at my home’s peak value. I hope the New York Times didn’t, either, but a lot of merging newspaper companies did. That, more than any cash-flow or circulation problem, is what is destroying newspapers today.