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Media

Hearst To Dump Seattle P-I

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Burning_money_pic_3It seems that the newspaper industry changes are not going to slow down any time soon.  An ominous announcement came across Business Wire today saying Hearst Corporation intends to jettison the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and its interest in the Joint Operating Agreement under which the P-I and The Seattle Times are published.  Hearst has retained newspaper industry investment bankers Broadwater & Associates of New York to search for a buyer.

If a sale of the paper does not occur within 60days than Hearst will pursue other options for the property, includinga move to a digital-only operation with a greatly reduced staff or acomplete shutdown.

Furthermore, the company states that "In no case will Hearst continue to publishthe P-I in printed form following the conclusion of this process….Regarding speculation over Hearst’s possible interest in acquiring TheSeattle Times newspaper, Hearst said such an acquisition is not underconsideration."

The paper has suffered operating losses since 2000 and lostapproximately $14 million in 2008. It anticipates a greaterloss in 2009.

But here is one thing that is odd.  If you were going to sell abusiness, would advertise your own disdain?  This is like taking out an ad on a dating websiteand putting your description summary as "fat and ugly underachieverseeks low self-esteemed being of low morals."

The newspaper industry is not going to improve anytime soon.

Jon C. Ogg
January 9, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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