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Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog   yourself for the 21st century or die! Some would rather die than change." Leonard Sweet, cultural historian. 08/03/2006 Entry: "Stock price pictures remain worth more than a thousand words" Sinclair Broadcast Group and Granite Broadcasting continued the trend of broadcast companies reporting weak 2nd quarter revenues this week, due primarily to a drop in the big automotive advertising category and falling network compensation. While everybody tends to look at and write about trends in programming, distribution and advertising, underneath it all is the volatility of broadcast stock prices. Wall Street is plenty nervous, and here's why. Thanks once again to the good folks at Morningstar.com, here's my annual presentation of the essential business problem for publicly-traded broadcast companies (or companies with broadcasting divisions). These are five-year stock price graphs: BELO  EMMIS  FISHER  GANNETT  GRANITE  GRAY  HEARST-ARGYLE  MCGRAW-HILL  MEDIA GENERAL  MEREDITH  NEXSTAR  NEW YORK TIMES  SINCLAIR  TRIBUNE  YOUNG  As you can see, it pays to be a diversified group, such as McGraw-Hill and Meredith, but overall, the picture is pretty dismal. This is why I am so passionate about moving broadcasters to multimedia business models and why I come off as harsh from time-to-time in so doing. Every news story that shows advertisers moving money from broadcasting to the web (such as todays WSJ/subscription-required piece on Fosters moving all TV advertising to the web), for example, further erodes the confidence that investors have in broadcast stocks. (Graphs courtesy Morningstar.com.)
Leonard Sweet |
