15 Comments Add your own

• 1. Adam  |  June 24th, 2008 at 7:33 am

  You think those are bad? Take a look at Young TV’s stock, YBTVA, they’re trading at 15 cents as of writing.

  But in any case, the whole industry is hurting, bad. It’s a known fact right now.

  -Adam

• 2. Sobo  |  June 24th, 2008 at 7:47 am

  Google actually has a handy Broadcasting and Cable TV index. (Name links to that page, but have your antacid ready!)

  So what can be done (aside from the obvious “sell more”)? Would sending more releases to convice investors to focus on web (”the future of the industry”) help? While TV renvenue is down 10+% for most companies, web revenue is consistently up 25%, though it’s a drop in the bucket.

  Where are my Tums?

• 3. Anonymous  |  June 24th, 2008 at 7:51 am

  look at any stock… a lot of companies seem to be hurting lately. newspapers, a little more so.

• 4. Nick Geidner  |  June 24th, 2008 at 9:23 am

  I agree…when looking at these six-month charts you need to remember that the whole market has gone down. For example, the Dow is down 8.6% over the same time . I mean don’t get me wrong newspapers are hurting worse, but it might not be as bad as it seems.

• 5. Merrell  |  June 24th, 2008 at 9:27 am

  People will continue to Watch TV, Read Newspapers, Read Magazines, and listen to radio. When I look at media stocks it’s like a sale at Walmart. You can pick up some Belo for under $8 a share, some News Corp for 2005 prices, some Gannett for under $25 a share (My wife works for Gannett).

  Sure the industry is struggling right now but I’ll be willing to bet it will pick up eventually. You just have to be sure to look at the fundamentals before you buy. If you’re in it for the short term then media isn’t the place to be right now.

• 6. Joe G.  |  June 24th, 2008 at 9:38 am

  Look at EW Scripps. They are going gangbusters… well, at least they are up and not down.

• 7. tdc  |  June 24th, 2008 at 10:14 am

  my theory is “they’ll kill a thousand stocks to save 30″ (the dow 30). a majority of people only see and hear the “averages” and base their opinion of the health of the market (thereby their 401k) on that. never mind that the underlying market has been crushed this year.

  tv stocks should be doing better than they are though. you have the ‘08 elections and the a/d conversion yet the stocks continue to shrink. i think there’s more to it than meets the eye with old media stocks.

  i would suggest not only looking at the share price on the charts cory has provided but to look at the daily volume graph below it, too.

  it’s thought that when stocks that have been gutted like these bottom there is usually a monster spike in volume when even its last supporters can no longer take the pain and throw in the towel… hasn’t happened yet.

  hey, take a look at the yellow pages publishers if you need to feel better about the industry you find yourself in these days- idearc (iar) and donnelly (rhd)

• 8. Rob  |  June 24th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

  It’s interesting that both Belo stocks - TV and newspaper - are down since they split up, which they did because the newspaper side of the house was allegedly depreciating the value of the TV side of the house.

  Glad I divested all mine way back when.

• 9. Amanda E.  |  June 24th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

  tdc, I’d add also looking at the key statistics of each company, not just the stock price. It gives a better overall picture.

  Most of these old media stocks are held primarily by institutions and mutual funds. When they dump these stocks, it’ll be time for you all to really start worrying.

• 10. tdc  |  June 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

  oh, i love you.

  i used to try talk story with women about stocks and all i evah got was stink eye.

  update on young broadcasting (ybtva): .073 (seven cents) at the close.

• 11. mediainvestor  |  June 24th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  As tdc mentioned above, it’s an election year, and also consider that it’s an olympic year! Frankly, if you want to make a killing in the near-term (think 4Q 08, 1Q 09), you should really be looking at local television stocks

  TVL is a good example, look at the analyst projections. You may have to hang in there for a few earnings reports, though. it will be too late to buy after that, and going into ‘09 and ‘10, the outlook is less bright.

  Time to buy media for the short term is NOW.

• 12. Amanda E.  |  June 24th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

  There’s still money in television - if there wasn’t, investment groups wouldn’t be buying up stations like they were candy.

  Interestingly, Berkshire Hathaway dumped their GCI holdings recently.

  Guess its time for me to buy more stock to sit on and hold for the long term - already made some money betting on the switch to digital by walking through master control and collecting the names of companies to research

• 13. Hussman  |  June 25th, 2008 at 6:16 am

  Young at 7 cents? that’s Granite Broadcasting territory.

• 14. tdc  |  June 25th, 2008 at 7:58 am

  “update from michael” ?

  here’s today’s update- it’s now ~ .20 (”up” a whopping 170% from last night’s close).

  wouldn’t touch it, though. seen a mess of these do this only days before filing.

• 15. Andrew  |  June 26th, 2008 at 8:48 am

  old line media stocks will continue to decrease because their leadership is old line….lack of vision….protect their core media at all costs…actually it’s boring…look out below…anyone who doesnt believe it think the Big Three automakers while Japanese cars entered the market…same story..

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