I smell schadenfreude!The New York Times Co. on Thursday forecast sharply lower third-quarter earnings because of a "challenging" print advertising market, sending shares down nearly 5 percent in after-hours trading. The publisher of The New York Times newspaper and the Boston Globe forecast earnings of 8 cents to 10 cents per share, compared with 16 cents in the same quarter last year. "The print advertising market has been very challenging during July and August and remains so in September," Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement.
On Monday, Dow Jones & Co. cut its third-quarter earnings forecast because of disappointing revenue at The Wall Street Journal. Yahoo warned on Tuesday that auto and financial advertising would be weaker than expected. The forecast includes an estimated charge of 1 cent to 2 cents per share for staff reduction costs.
It also includes an estimated charge of 2 cents to 3 cents for the loss on the company's sale of its investment in the Discovery Times Channel, which it said it would sell for $100 million. Leaving out those items, the earnings forecast range would be 11 cents to 15 cents a share. Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates were expecting earnings of 18 cents a share, excluding items.
It is not immediately clear whether those estimates exclude the same items.