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SLO Tribune’s parent company McClatchy, files for bankruptcy

February 13, 2020

By CCT STAFF

Newspaper publisher McClatchy, which owns the San Luis Obispo Tribune, announced Thursday it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a move due in large part to the company’s overburdened pension system.

McClatchy publishes 30 newspapers in 14 states, including five in California: The Tribune, The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star. Other McClatchy publications include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Having already seen its revenue decline for five consecutive years, McClatchy’s 2019 revenue is expected to decrease 12.1 percent from its 2018 earnings.

Following the third quarter of last year, McClatchy reported a net loss of $304.7 million, prompting a 65 percent drop in its stock price. At the time, McClatchy had approximately $700 million in debt and was unable to pay $120 million in pension obligations.

Company Chairman Kevin McClatchy reports McClatchy has a ratio of 10 retirees collecting pensions for every 1 active worker.

“While we tried hard to avoid this step, there’s no question that the scale of our 75-year-old pension plan — with 10 pensioners for every single active employee — is a reflection of another economic era,” Kevin McClatchy said.

Kevin McClatchy is the great grandson of company founder James McClatchy. The bankruptcy process is expected to end McClatchy family control of the company, which has existed since the company’s founding in 1857.

“While this is obviously a sad milestone after 163 years of family control, McClatchy remains a strong operating company committed to essential local news and information,” Kevin McClatchy said.

The likely new owners of the company would be led by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management.

For more than a decade, McClatchy’s stock has been in decline. On Thursday, McClatchy stock closed at 75 cents a share.

Five years ago, McClatchy stock was listed at about $25. Fifteen years ago, the company’s stock price was more than $700.

Last September, the New York Stock Exchange placed the company on notice that if it did not reverse its declining stock price, it would be delisted.

Amid the company’s financial troubles, the Tribune has downsized its operations and moved to a smaller office. The Tribune also stopped printing a Saturday newspaper.

McClatchy says  it has obtained $50 million in debtor-in-possession financing, and there will be no changes to compensation of current employees as a result of the bankruptcy filing. The company aims to emerge from bankruptcy in a few months.


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Good for all of us that do not reside in the “low info voter” category.


Side Note: I was a roommate of a McClatchey son/grandson in the 90’s. He did work as a journalist, just not for his despised family name fish wrap.


1

Echo chamber


-3

Poor Joe Tarica and Matt Fountain… fortunately for them the world still needs bar tenders!


12

How to Destroy any News Publication in 3 Easy Steps:


1. Do not report the news. Instead, enact a policy of making the publication a mouthpiece for local government and police.

2. Take sides. Create extreme bias in “reporting” consistent with whatever side is chosen. Push an agenda you “believe in.” Do not publish alternative points of view, except to disparage them.

3. Put articles behind an obnoxious paywall in order to insure that very few viewers see paid advertising or read articles. Call it a “community” newspaper, but make it inaccessible to the community unless they pay….


You’re welcome.


35

I want to feel bad but I just can’t.


22

I don’t even wanna feel bad.


Hell, I’m Glad All Over:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtNFaa2ne0


11

It’s a doomed business model when you try to sell leftist-tinged “news” to a readership that ostensibly hates capitalism, which is about all the Trib has left at this point.


Conservatives quit subscribing to the Trib a long time ago. Old fogies kept getting it out of habit because they had always taken the local paper and were used to a print copy, but their numbers have dwindled due to age.


Newer retirees are internet-savvy and more likely to seek out online content that suits their political bent, rather than tolerate a left-leaning legacy publication.


And the young have no use for legacy print media at all.


31

“leftest-tinged”? More like leftest-drenched. Please don’t try to minimize their situation. Otherwise, well said.


8

Get woke; go broke.


22

In the word of Curly Bill………..well……………..bye.


14

In the words of Craig Jones (aka Ice Cube) in Friday, “Bye Felicia!”


1

Those of you that get this rag I’m sure noticed that on the front page there was a write up about vulgar e-mails that surfaced in county race, it looks like they didn’t cut the A Hill any slack either,also mentioned the former wife Mz Torres, also says he ridiculed the reporter, they kinda spanked him, is there hope if this paper makes a come back or were they just reporting because of the report here on CCN.


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