The Boston Globe ain’t all that anymore
New York Times Company has written down the value of the New England Media Group - the core of which is The Boston Globe - by $814 million. NYTCo. acquired the Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993. I don’t know what current value NYTCo is putting on the newspaper, but I imagine it’s a good deal more than $1.1 billion minus $814 million.
(I guess the valuation should be somewhere north of $1.4 billion minus $814.4, as the New England Media Group include a Worcester newspaper that cost close to $300 million).
NYTCo’s Internet revenues are growing rapidly:
In the fourth quarter, our Internet revenues grew 42 percent to $84.8 million from $59.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. For the full-year 2006, Internet revenues rose 41.2 percent to $273.9 million from $193.9 million in 2005. Excluding the additional week, Internet revenues grew 35.3 percent in the fourth quarter and 39.2 percent for the full year. Internet businesses include our digital archives, NYTimes.com, Boston.com, About.com and Web sites of our other newspaper properties. In total, Internet businesses accounted for 9.1 percent of our revenues in the fourth quarter versus 6.7 percent in the 2005 fourth quarter. For the year, Internet revenues accounted for 8.3 percent of total revenues compared with 6.0 percent in 2005.
Things could be looking up for the Globe as “advertising has the opportunity to increase” because there are “elements that we are seeing in Boston… that could be beneficial in regards to the increase in the advertiser base” according to the January 31 NYTCo conference call (mp3 file).
