Nearly Everyone Reads the Philadelphia Bulletin,...

Tough times for Philadelphia's leftists rags? Hopefully a boycott of The Paper That Shall Not Be Named is playing a part in this:

'Inquirer,' 'DN' Owners Miss Interest Payment Again
By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press
10/08/2008

New York - The owners of Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers missed an interest payment once again as they seek a new agreement with lenders to account for the continuing decline they expect in advertising revenue.

The latest move appears aimed at forcing lenders to renegotiate, something many have been doing with newspaper companies as the worsening economy puts additional pressure on an advertising market that - long before the current downturn began - already was suffering from a migration of readers and ad dollars to the Internet.

Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC, which owns The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia XXXXX XXXX, said it had enough cash on hand to make its Oct. 1 payment, but was awaiting completion of the renegotiations to release the money.

Although the company made a reference to "the chaos, volatility and uncertainty in today's financial and credit markets" of recent weeks, the newspapers' troubles began long before that.The company first missed a payment in June, and in August it proposed restructuring its lending agreements to help it weather the drop in advertising revenue.

Philadelphia Media's missed payment of an unspecified amount, disclosed in a statement Friday, follows a decision by the Star Tribune of Minneapolis to skip a $9 million quarterly debt payment to save cash as it, too, tries to restructure its debt.

In both cases, the owners took on debt to buy the papers from McClatchy Co., which itself restructured its lending agreements last month. A group of investors led by former advertising executive Brian Tierney bought the two Philadelphia papers for $562 million in June 2006; Avista Capital Partners acquired the Star Tribune for $530 million in March 2007.

"Both of those went to companies that bought what they thought were undervalued properties at a low time in the market and found out they had bought too early," Ken Doctor, a media analyst with Outsell Inc., said Monday. He said advertising revenue has declined faster than anticipated all year.

AP


©The Evening Bulletin 2008

The TrekMedic lets loose some schadenfreude:

Brian, you had a chance to re-make the Inky into a force for good, but you've let the unions and losers like Chris "I Hate America" Satullo run the paper into the ground.