The McClatchy Company
Circulation revenues rose 1.6 percent at McClatchy's properties in the first quarter of 2013. Advertising revenue was down 6 percent. Overall, revenues were down 4 percent over the first quarter of 2012.

The company's digital subscription program "continues to exceed our expectations," McClatchy President and CEO Pat Talamantes said in the earnings release. (more...)

The McClatchy Co.
McClatchy's circulation revenues were down in the fourth quarter of 2012, the company said in an earnings report released Thursday morning. Circulation revenue fell 1.9 percent, and advertising revenue was down 6 percent.

In McClatchy's third-quarter earnings report, CEO Patrick Talamantes predicted that revenues from the company's paywalls would “begin to make a more significant impact" in the fourth quarter, by which time the company planned to have paywalls in place at all its papers.

Talamantes says in the new report that the paywall program, called "Plus," "contributed $1.2 million in incremental revenues in 2012 which is impressive considering that most of our newspapers launched the program in the fourth quarter. We believe that the new Plus Program could result in more than $20 million in new revenues by the end of the year." (more...)

A memo to employees sent on behalf of Publisher Gary Wortel lays out the bad news:

Some single incumbent positions will be eliminated and several positions that are currently open will not be replaced. Work groups in several operations and circulation departments will be offered a voluntary separation package today. If enough employees do not take the voluntary option, the positions will be eliminated through the least-tenured employees in those work groups.

Employees will be required to take a one-week unpaid furlough between Feb. 11 and July 31, the memo says.

The Star-Telegram was one of five McClatchy-owned newspapers to introduce a paywall last fall. In an otherwise unhappy third quarter earnings report, McClatchy President and CEO Pat Talamantes said revenues from the paywalls “will begin to make a more significant impact in the fourth quarter.” In December, the company announced it received more than $38 million from equity investments in 2012.

Here's the memo... (more...)

The McClatchy Co.
Advertising and circulation revenue were down at the McClatchy Co. in the third quarter of this year. Five of the company's newspapers -- including The Sacramento Bee and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram --- introduced a digital-subscription paywall called Plus in September. In an earnings report released today, McClatchy president and CEO Pat Talamantes said "only a small percentage of renewals have opted out of the Plus program, telling us our print readers value our content and high-quality journalism and are willing to pay extra for it in digital form."

Circulation revenue was down 2 percent over the third quarter of 2011. In the earnings release, Talamantes said revenues from the paywalls "will begin to make a more significant impact in the fourth quarter."

The company plans to roll out paywalls across all its papers, an initiative Talamantes estimates "could add more than $20 million" in revenues next year. (more...)

McClatchy
Austin Tice "has been incommunicado for more than a week, his whereabouts unknown since exchanging email with a colleague," Hannah Allam reports. Tice had been in Syria reporting for McClatchy, The Washington Post, CBS News, Al Jazeera English and other organizations, Allam writes.

Tice was due to leave Damascus for Lebanon after Aug. 11; the trip "often takes days because of the fighting en route," Allam writes. "The Damascus suburb where he was last known to have been has faced heavy bombardment in recent days that has made communications difficult."

McClatchy says it's working with other news organizations and the U.S. State Department to find Tice. Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told Allam he's “focused intensively” on getting Tice home.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Hannah Allam's name.

The McClatchy Co.
McClatchy says it intends "to roll out a metered plan in the third quarter in five of our markets" in its press release about the company's second-quarter earnings, and it will start charging at the rest of its papers in the fourth quarter.

We will offer readers a combined print and digital subscription package that will include access to web, certain mobile and replica editions for a relatively small increase to print home-delivery rates. We'll also offer online-only digital subscriptions to users after they read a certain number of pages. Once the first wave is launched, we intend to expand this model to our other markets beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.

In an address to shareholders this past May, CEO Patrick J. Talamantes said the company's experiments were an "ongoing search for that sweet spot – trying to capture additional subscription revenues without harming traffic or advertising revenues." He cited the paywall at The Modesto Bee as one of the models the company was considering.

For the second quarter, the company reported net income of $26.9 million, more than five times the same quarter in 2011.

Print advertising was down 7.5 percent from the year before, which is a bit better than the first-quarter decline. Digital advertising was up 8.5 percent from the year before. Daily circulation was down 6 percent and Sunday circulation was down 5.2 percent; circulation revenues were down 2.4 percent. (more...)