Gets you what? $19 billion is the market capitalization of 10 of the major U.S. newspaper stocks. Put another way, about 1/8th the value of Google.
To be clear, this is not the valuation of the top 10 newspaper companies because Hearst, Tribune, Cox are private and Dow Jones is part of behemoth News Corp, but it does make a stark statement about the wisdom of being public ownership of media stocks. There are calls for private equity to jump in and pick up cheap newspaper stocks but I don’t see that happening because 1) The Sam Zell Experience, 2) organized labor is a hazard on the print side of newspaper operations and threatens the online side as well, and 3) we’re dealing with some fundamentally broken businesses who’s salvation is not going to be found in cost cutting and reorganizations.
| Name | Symbol | Last price | Change | Mkt cap | Volume | Open | High | Low |
| Gannett Co., Inc. | GCI | 18.34 | 0.57 | $4,194 | 3260344 | 17.83 | 18.74 | 17.61 |
| Journal Register Company | JRCO | 0.09 | -0.01 | $4 | 229059 | 0.095 | 0.105 | 0.09 |
| Journal Communications, Inc. | JRN | 5.58 | 0.59 | $313 | 299080 | 4.9 | 5.97 | 4.9 |
| Lee Enterprises, Incorporated | LEE | 4.31 | 0.26 | $193 | 492527 | 4.57 | 5 | 4.1 |
| Media General, Inc. | MEG | 13.54 | -0.09 | $310 | 71662 | 13.51 | 14.24 | 12.95 |
| The McClatchy Company | MNI | 5.18 | 0.23 | $426 | 509975 | 5.06 | 5.34 | 4.98 |
| The New York Times Company | NYT | 13.06 | 0.2 | $1,878 | 1939797 | 13.05 | 13.42 | 12.38 |
| Sun-Times Media Group, Inc. | SUTM | 0.4 | 0 | $32 | 0 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| The Washington Post Company | WPO | 610.51 | 10.01 | $5,816 | 8900 | 598.1 | 613.49 | 598.1 |
| Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. | SNI | 39.7 | 0.61 | $6,487 | 196624 | 40.21 | 40.4 | 38.5 |
BONUS: Here’s a really cool family tree chart that details who owns what in the media business.
- Tags: newspapers