The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento said today that advertising trends have improved lately, although ad sales are still below a year ago.
Speaking at a New York investment conference, executives with The Bee's owner said ad sales were down 8.7 percent in October and 2.4 percent in November, an average fall of 5.6 percent. That compared to declines of 10.1 percent for the first nine months of the year.
Gary Pruitt, McClatchy's chairman and chief executive officer, said, "The improving advertising trends in the first two months of the fourth quarter have been led by retail and national advertising. This is particularly encouraging given that October and November were our strongest months in 2010, and so are our toughest comparisons of the year."
The news drove McClatchy's stock up 17 cents in early New York Stock Exchange trading, to $1.35 a share.
Pruitt also noted that Sunday circulation is up, "one of the more positive developments" of the year.
"While daily circulation has shown improvement over the year, Sunday circulation has improved dramatically and is now growing, up 1.9% in the last five months," Pruitt said. "There is no discounting the importance of the Sunday newspaper. On average, Sunday drives nearly 36% of advertising revenues. The Sunday paper is highly profitable for us in addition to being highly valued by our readers and advertisers."
Pruitt said the company also expects to receive nearly $30 million in dividends this month from the company's equity investments, including the Classified Ventures and CareerBuilder online operations.
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