Gracia Martore: In a short term, we will simply take the proceeds in and repay debt with them. But obviously there are a number of investment opportunities we continue to look at. We dipped our toe back into the share repurchase market towards the end of March and we would anticipate that you may see us doing further share repurchases in the second quarter.
Craig Huber (Lehman Brothers): Do you have any plans of potentially selling or spinning off your TV station division?
Craig Dubow: As we look at it right now, we are in a tremendous sweet spot with the political that is forthcoming, certainly, as we go into 2008 and with a number of other opportunities that we are seeing at this point. In general, we see that will create and continue to create good value for the company and we''re very pleased with the direction that we''re heading with our duopolies and certainly would look for that as we go further into the future as well.
Craig Huber (Lehman Brothers): Can you comment on the multiple you received from the sale of your four small papers?
Gracia Martore: The revenues out of those properties were in the $115 million to $120 million range and they had cash flow margins in the very low 30% range.
Fred Searby (JP Morgan): Could you talk about specifically how Newsquest''s online operations are doing in the UK vis-a-vis Monster and CareerBuilder''s efforts abroad internationally?
Craig Dubow: We are seeing some very good traction in the UK and this past period here, we have been up in the plus 50% range with them. With respect to Fish4, which would be the CB equivalent in the UK, which we participate in, we have also seen some tremendous growth from that perspective as well. I would certainly anticipate that will further itself as we go along within the year.
Gracia Martore: Fish4 is a clear number one in the employment category sites in the UK, far surpassing Monster and any other career sites there. As to CareerBuilder''s international expansion, that is certainly in its nascent stages. However, they have done a couple of recent small acquisitions in Sweden and in the Netherlands to expand upon their international efforts. You''ll see that continues to be a thrust for them as well as a continued thrust to be the clear number one here in the U.S. in every metric.
Stephen Barlow (Prudential Equity Group): What is the run rate of annual revenue of the two Connecticut newspapers you''re buying?
Gracia Martore: With regard to the SCNI papers, it''s probably a little premature for us to discuss that given the most recent issues there with the labor unions. As we get closer to resolution there, we will be happy to share those numbers.
Paul Ginocchio (Deutsche Bank): You made some comments about some of the issues with joining the current newspaper consortium. Can you comment on what some of the issues are?
Craig Dubow: We are not suggesting that we have made any hard decisions from any direction. We are most committed to the concept of an industry wide ad network. We think that is of tremendous value. But what we don''t want to do is put ourselves in any position that could potentially compromise the value of our content. Additionally, we want to make absolutely certain that it is fair and open to all. From that I also want to be able to see how this works with other networks as well. We want to be very clear that there are opportunities to work in a multitude of networks. We think this is a good opportunity. For those reasons, we are very interested in obviously learning more as we go along, but from a content and exclusivity standpoint, we want to be very protective of what we have. We will continue to work with Tribune on our network. At this point with more than some 37 million unique visitors to our websites, we are well set, but certainly would look to continue to expand that.
Alexia Quadrani (Bear Stearns): Could you comment on how USA Today is trending in the second quarter? On the community papers, are you expecting any negative impact in the month of April from the earlier Easter holiday this year?
Gracia Martore: With regard to USA Today, they have seen some pickup on the advertising. It is a little bit similar to what we saw last year in that 2006 started out on a slow note and then each quarter got successively better and then the full year was a nice up year for them. The first quarter started off a little slow and they''ve seen some campaigns that they were anticipating might break in the first quarter breaking in the second quarter. They are a little bit more optimistic as we enter the second quarter that we will see some pickup there.
As to the community newspapers, given that the last Sunday before Easter was in the first quarter, whereas it was in the second quarter last year, we may see some of the preprint revenue could have been realized in the first quarter versus the second quarter. We''ll have to see how April plays out and add the two together as we always suggest you do to get to the neutralizing the impact.
Karl Choi (Merrill Lynch): On the UK, without the calendar shift in the second quarter that you enjoyed in the first quarter, do you think you maintained the positive momentum in terms of gains in advertising revenues in the second quarter at this point?
Gracia Martore: We''ll have to see how the second quarter plays out. We have continued to make progress each quarter and there will be some categories in Scotland and in London that will be a bit softer, but then there are others that will be partially offsetting of that. But we''ll have to see as the quarter progresses where that takes us.
Peter Alpert (Goldman Sachs): The cash cost was down 2%. Do you think you can hold it at something close to that level through the balance of 2007?
Gracia Martore: We will take it one quarter at a time, and obviously it will be dependent on where we see the revenue picture going. If the revenue picture perks up in the second half of the year, then we would expect that expenses would be commensurate with that revenue pickup. But clearly we will have the benefit on the newsprint side that should ramp up during the course of the year. Certainly through the second quarter, we would anticipate strong cost controls in place across the company, but then we''ll have to see how the revenue picture unfolds.
Peter Alpert (Goldman Sachs): On the newsprint, can you tell what the contract prices are today versus a year ago, to understand better what the flow-through benefit might be in the subsequent quarters?
Gracia Martore: I can not speak on prices, but newsprint expense will continue to ratchet down. It was about flat this quarter. We would expect it to be each successive quarter lower than the last quarter. |