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Description: Janet Robinson is The New York Times CEO/President. With a Lead411 subscription, The New York Times email addresses ( @nytco.com ) of the executives are viewable. Other information includes Janet Robinson email, phone, and extension.
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Site Reference: http://www.nytco.com/investors/presentations/investors-presentations-20081023.html
Janet Robinson our president and CEO; Jim Follo, our senior vice president and chief financial officer; Scott Heekin-Canedy, president and general manager of The New York Times; and Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president, Digital Operations. All comparisons on this conference call will be for the third quarter 2008 to the third quarter of 2007, unless otherwise noted. Our discussion will include forward-looking statements, and our actual results may differ from those predicted. Some of the factors that may cause them to differ are included in our 2007 form 10-K. Our presentation will include non-GAAP financial measures and we have provided reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release, which is available on our corporate Web site, www.nytco.com. An archive of this call will be available on our Web site as will a transcript and a version that is downloadable to an MP3 player. With that, let me Janet Robinson: Thank you, Catherine, and good morning, everyone. This morning we reported a preliminary third-quarter loss per share from continuing operations of $0.01, including $0.07 per share in expense for severance costs, compared with $0.10 earnings per share in the third quarter last year, which included $0.02 per share for severance costs. Our preliminary results reported today do not include an anticipated non-cash charge for impairment of goodwill and long lived assets. Due to the continuing softness of business conditions driven by the secular forces affecting the newspaper industry, we are testing the assets of our New England Media Group for impairment in the 2008 third quarter. While the results have not yet been finalized, we currently estimate a non-cash impairment charge of $100 million to $150 million. We will record the charge in our financial statement when we file our Form 10-Q with the SEC. The I will have Scott give you the information on circulation and Martin will give you the overview in regard to the guide network, Dave. Scott Heekin-Canedy: As with our price increases in recent years, we are seeing better than expected volume drops as a result of the price increase, so we're trending better than expected in circulation levels. The yield is significant and we expect to annualize generate $16 million to $18 million of revenue. Martin Nisenholtz: The current guide number is 770 and we are trending toward the 900 that you referenced for next year. David Clark: Okay. Thank you. Ed Atorino (Benchmark): SG&A was down looks like about $30 million from last year. Would that sort of be a run rate going forward in terms of the cost reduction actions? Jim Follo: We continue to execute well, as I said, on Peter, on the sale of assets and divestitures, we don't comment on that but we have said often that we constantly review our portfolio and will continue to going forward. I think the focus right now is making sure these properties are running as efficiently as possible, and we are making sure the cost base of all of them are being brought down quite dramatically as evidenced by what we have done at The Times and the case of the C&S distribution arm closing, the consolidation at Edison, and certainly the closing of Billerica plant in Boston. We are going to continue to do those things to make sure all of these properties are run as efficiently as they possibly can be. Peter Appert: Right. Is there a specific debt level or leverage ratio that you folks might like to be at the end of 2009, let's Thank you, Peter. Alexia Quadrani (JPMorgan): Thank you, a couple questions. First, Janet, when you mentioned constant reviewing of your portfolio, do you think there are buyers of newspaper assets right now currently in the marketplace? And then my second question is on the Internet side of the business, where you talk about the weakness in display advertising going forward. Is it on any specific one property or is it across the board there? Janet Robinson: I will have Martin answer the Internet advertising. In regard to the outlook and regard to potential buyers for newspaper properties, I think this is a difficult time for our industry. It is clear is that we are facing secular and cyclical head winds, but from the standpoint of the brands represented by newspapers nationally, it is clear that these are still very strong brands in their communities and beyond. You are welcome. John Janedis (Wachovia): Good morning, thanks. Janet, you talked about visibility being limited on the advertising side. Can you talk about maybe the buying patterns in these categories? How much closer to run date are you seeing commitments come in from department stores or other categories compared to a quarter or two ago? Janet Robinson: There is more of a trending toward just-in-time placement across all of our properties. I think retail most of all primarily because of the nature of their business. That said, John, there is quite a bit of business that is already on contract, not only at The Times but at the Globe as well. T hat is in a number of categories. I think from a standpoint of the economic situation that exists right now, you're seeing more just-in-time placement as opposed to longer flights and flights that It is too early to tell. Certainly there will always be discussions about contractual obligations. But the way contracts are put together, they are incentivized to run a certain amount of advertising during the course of the year. From the standpoint of their cost base, I think there are distinct advantages to sticking to the contractual agreements that they agreed to. I think in most cases people are going to be focusing on those advantages going forward. John Janedis: If I could just ask Martin a question. Your comment about high end versus the lower end, can you give us an idea maybe how much inventory is you would classify as higher end? Martin Nisenholtz: That is a good question. My reference was really to higher end being at The Times Web site. In general, that inventory is viewed as premium inventory as opposed, for example, You are welcome. Ed Atorino (Benchmark): Regarding the advertising outlook that you talk about October, do you think, given sort of the credit crisis and the credit crunch and people watching their cash, there has been sort of a, you mentioned just-in-time advertising, which has been my personal belief anyway. Advertisers might have been unduly cautious and if the credit markets loosen up and they believe the money is in the bank, they might put some money back into the budgets or is that wishful thinking? Scott Heekin-Canedy: Ed, this is Scott. Advertisers are definitely taking a day-by-day wait and see approach to see where the markets are going, how the economy is going to respond, and they are trying to spend their ad dollars very judiciously. You have seen some nice increases, particularly from financial services in the past month, as institutions have tried to We saw a strong climb in financial advertising at both The Times and the Globe in regard to the advertising that addressed the crisis certainly with banks and financial institutions. It is clear when there is a deliberate reason for them to get their message out they use these vehicles to do so, the immediacy of the message and the full explanation of the message in those kinds of ads that are appearing in those papers. Ed Atorino: You don't think there has been sort of pressure on budgets because a cash that exaggerated the weakness? Janet Robinson: They are being extremely cautious in regard to how they are spending their money. I don't think the dollars are totally gone, but I think they are being very judicious in regard to how they are spending. I also think in regard to the retail sector, it will We have not decided specifically in regard to those structures as of yet. I think they will be further evaluation, I think we will be conservative in regard to any rate increases that we are looking at for 2009 particularly because of the economic situation. Ed Atorino: Thank you very much. Craig Huber (Barclays Capital): Good morning. Thank you. I just want to ask a couple questions. First one about the pension, just looking at your 10-K, I think it is underfunded last year $275 million underfunded and I think you have about $1.5 million of assets. Just given here the S&P 500 is down 35% to 40% this year, I guess most bond funds are down between 5% to 10%, it is probably not unreasonable for your pension assets to be down a good 20%, that would probably put your underfunded status upwards of down You're welcome. Scott Davis (JPMorgan): Good morning. I am looking at About and I am curious about the other side of the equation, the cost side. Wondering if Martin can give a minute of color on what you are doing there because costs on my numbers, excluding D&A, grew 5% to 6%, which is vastly better than the 30%, 40%, 50% growth that you had. Are we just cycling this sales growth that you put in place or is something else happening? Martin Nisenholtz: Yes, in part, that is what we are doing. We invested, as I think you know, if you followed the story to date, we have invested a significant amount of money in the sales force rebuild. We are committed to that, we think it's an important part of the business and we think we need to have a highly confident and sizable
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