$10 before $20 is nearly written in stone.

I said "revenues", not earnings. I think Gracia refused to predict 1Q revenues in newspapers because she knew from the momentum they've seen in January already that they have a shot at a YOY beat on revenues in newspapers for 1Q, but to predict it --or even put it on the table as a possibility-- and then not hit it would be a big disappointment. She likely also realized it would be tone deaf and cruel to brag about an expected revenue beat in 1Q when she knows there are still furloughs and layoffs in the pipeline.

Again, Broadcast revenues *will* beat YoY in 1Q (thank you, Olympics). Digital probably will, tho I won't promise it. Broadcast *will* beat for full year 2010 on *revenues* --thank you olympics, and thank you an estimated $4.4 billion of political-year ad spend, 60% of which goes to local TV affiliates. Broadcast beating YoY revenues for the full year is nearly written in stone.

YOY Earnings growth means nothing if it's only based on staff cuts!!! There is NO earnings growth. Earnings are, and will continue to fall. All they can do it cut and furlough until they have nothing left to cut.

If the economy doesn't "double dip", which certainly could happen, I think it likely 1Q and 2Q revenues will exceed year over year comparisons on a company-wide basis. We'll see. Broadcast certainly will. Broadcast will for the year too, and by substantial margins. Digital will. Publishing may not, but the question will then be by how much.

Broadcasting 4Q '09 revenue exceeded 4Q '08 revenue, ex-political, and a lot of ad budgets were largely locked in 4Q '08 before the financial crisis hit full force in early October.

In a squirrely market as we have at the moment, it isn't impossible that GCI could "see $10 before $20". It was at $10 just two months ago, after all, and is still up over 35% since mid-December at this writing with the general market taking a pounding --which implies a lot of nervous (about the general market) people could still take significant profits in GCI. But even if that happened because of general market pressure, that doesn't mean GCI can't see $20 by summer (say around 2Q announcement) or sooner.

Longer term, 2011 and later, there are still a whole lot of challenges, but 2010 is going to be pretty good for GCI (the stock, that is --still pain to come for some employees) if the rest of the economy provides at least non-recessionary support.

[quote="tcdude"]No, I wasn't suggesting they read my posts here and repost them as their own work. Sheesh. Bottom line, they've just put a $23 price target on a $15 stock. If you find them credible, you can follow that or not as you see fit. They aren't the first market analysts recently to raise their target for GCI to $20+.[/quote]

My point is that ad revenues going foward from oh let's say...right now, will not support your/their price target. If the earnings aren't there to support the "theory" of what the stock "could be", the price will fall. Mark my words which I will gladly eat if I am wrong, GCI will be at $10 before and if it EVER hits $20.

No, I wasn't suggesting they read my posts here and repost them as their own work. Sheesh. Bottom line, they've just put a $23 price target on a $15 stock. If you find them credible, you can follow that or not as you see fit. They aren't the first market analysts recently to raise their target for GCI to $20+.

[quote="tcdude"]thestreet.com now beginning to see what I've seen:

"At $15, Gannett is trading at less than 8x 2010 consensus estimates. At 12x earnings, this is a $23 stock. I believe that the current outlook is still quite conservative -- with good reason, given the remaining uncertainties in this economy. But if Gannett can continue to generate good free cash flow, can continue to pay down debt and continue to manage expenses as it has over the past several quarters, there may be some further upside in this stock."

12x earnings is still conservative, btw, by current standards and quite reasonable by historical standards. The s&p 500 as a whole is trading around 20x earnings.[/quote]

Dude- The Street.Com isn't interested in what you believe. You aren't as smart as you think. Raising profits (and the truth here s) based entirely on cutting the workforce is like putting icing on dogs#@t. Even as the economy picks up, ads are not. The product continues to deteriorate and the subscriber base is fading. Nobody is going to pay for the same garbage product online either. Advertisers know this and will move further away from all things Gannett at an accelerated pace. You can only sugar coat it for so long. Not drinking the kool-aid here, kid.

thestreet.com now beginning to see what I've seen:

"At $15, Gannett is trading at less than 8x 2010 consensus estimates. At 12x earnings, this is a $23 stock. I believe that the current outlook is still quite conservative -- with good reason, given the remaining uncertainties in this economy. But if Gannett can continue to generate good free cash flow, can continue to pay down debt and continue to manage expenses as it has over the past several quarters, there may be some further upside in this stock."

12x earnings is still conservative, btw, by current standards and quite reasonable by historical standards. The s&p 500 as a whole is trading around 20x earnings.

I'm not aware of any specific ongoing talks, but I actually think it a more likely scenario now than it has been over the last 18 months. They're a much more attractive partner now having already done most of the heavy lifting on restructuring both operations and debt, the board with a reasonable premium above current stock price wouldn't feel like they'd totally screwed the stockholders (of which they themselves are members), with the economy stabilizing visibility is getting better, and with the financial markets unfrozen financing some portion of a deal easier.

Dubow did talk about "strategic options" and M&A yesterday, so speculation in that direction is unsurprising. The thing is, he discussed them in the context of Gracia Martore's new job which isn't just new for her, it is a new position within the company --so it is entirely possible that discussion was just letting everyone know who was in charge of what inside Gannett in the new structure, and not evidence of a renewed interest in selling the company.

beam us up scotty.....can't get any worse...

Word on the street is Gannett is prime to be taken over either in whole or part. Any thoughts ?

Just listened to the call from this morning. . . interesting that Dubow said in announcing Gracia's new role as President and COO that he would "continue to work on M&A" along with other strategic issues.

Now, it could be he was just making clear the deliniation of responsibilities since "President and COO" is a new (high salary, alas) job at Gannett and he wanted the analysts to know who was responsible for what.

Or maybe he had more in mind there by mentioning it. One of the things you might do if you were anticipating being bought is setup Dubow to ride off into the sunset, while putting a new (lower paid) exec in charge for the longer-term post-merger entity as somebody's else's division.

I was expecting a "sell on the news" move down anyway, so I can't say I'm shocked. Treated the bottom this morning as a buying opportunity.

I can't call that report "not good" tho, when they beat even the "high" analyst expectations by 3 cents/share, and "consensus" by 9 cents/share. And beat consensus on revenue too, which is arguably more important, and predicted Broadcast up year over year by high single digits for 1Q.

GCI quarterly earnings report is not going to be good when it is announced tomorrow morning. I'm looking for a significant move down. Let's see if I'm right.

Feeling pretty good about having significantly re-invested the last time GCI dipped to $10. I own about 1/2 as many shares as I did this summer, but a 50%+ gain the last few weeks still has me humming happy tunes.

A leading media analyst at Wells Fargo also seems pointed to a $20+ target for GCI in 2010: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/reuters/MTFH80269_2009-12-23_15-30-42_N23151675.htm

At $1.95 eps for the year, $20/share would be just a nose above a PE ratio of 10. . . the overall S&P 500 is trading at about 21x earnings right now.

I still wouldn't "fight the market" re GCI if the overall market went into a tailspin, but assuming a relatively stable (even sideways rather than up) market, I see very little in the way of GCI continuing to rise thru the 4Q earnings report.

That is where it will get interesting. Gracia claimed to be comfortable with a $.62/share ("high end" at that time) 4Q report. . .but now Janedis has raised the bar to $.69. So if they can't at least hit that mark there is liable to be profit-taking. Then we get into the whole phenomenon of "whisper" numbers. . . so we'll have to see how the stock does between now and then as whether even $.69/share is enough to hold the price at that point. At todays price, probably. If there is significant appreciation between then and now. . .maybe not.

I'm not changing my call for $20 by late spring/early summer. . .but I would no longer be surprised if it beat that timing somewhat if the overall market stays stable-to-up. Either temporarily just before the 4Q earnings announcement based on speculation of an upside surprise (and then falling back if it doesn't happen). . . or more permenantly if a significant beat of Janedis $.69/share for 4Q happens when GCI announces earnings.

Note there is already a greater than 50% discount of GCI vs the S&P 500 on PE ratio. Arguably there is a fantasy number of $40+/share that could be possible. But it won't happen until --actually, unless-- GCI can prove again it can grow revenue year-over-year, and not just against the three "Great Recession" quarters of 2008 4Q, and 2009 1Q and 2Q. So in other words, don't be betting on $40 share as even an "optimistic" (rather than fantasy) possibility before 2011. . . and only then if revenues beat year-over-year in the second half of 2010 and 1Q 2011. . . which would also likely be when (i.e. second 1/2 of 2010 or early 2011) the dividend would start growing again if those y-over-y revenue beats happen.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200912091249DOWJONESDJONLINE000527_FORTUNE5.htm

Article about Gannett's presentation at UBS conference.

Gannett's own PR, with various metrics for 2010: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/cnnmoney/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20091209005891&newsLang=en&ndmConfigId=1000618&vnsId=33

[quote]"For the year, Martore said she expects the company to post revenue of $5.6 billion, down 18% from 2008.

She said the company is "clearly comfortable with the high-end" of current fourth-quarter earnings estimates, which range from 48 cents a share to 62 cents a share."[/quote]

Mean quarterly estimates are running at $.54. Gracia would seem to be suggesting $.58-.62 is where they will hit. That would be another solid performance and keep GCI on track for a ~$20 range sometime next spring/summer, unless the wheels fall off the general economy in a "double dip".

1Q is a seasonally weak quarter, tho the Olympics will help that on the broadcast side. . . and clearly the announced 1Q furloughs were intended to help there as well.

Another 6.4% up today, for about 18% up over the last three sessions. Seems the UBS conference is driving this move, as McClatchy gave some "better than expected" news today at the conference and was rewarded for it, pulling the rest of the sector along.

I expect GCI to make a significant move tomorrow. . . just not willing to predict in which direction. :) Clearly a significant amount of "good news" (or at least "less bad news than expected") has been priced in the last three sessions. That would argue for a sell-off tomorrow unless the exec team has something pretty nice to say/show to exceed the expectations priced in the last three sessions --in other words, classic "buy the rumor; sell the news".

Nice 7.8% move up by GCI today in a nearly flat overall market. Closed at the highs too and a relatively smooth upward curve all day. I suspect a "buy on the rumor/sell on the news" speculation for Wednesday's analyst meeting.

Be interesting to see what news, if any, comes out of the UBS presentation next week. That's the kind of forum where an exec team likes to share some good news if they have any in their pockets.

The USA Today layoffs announced today are just the start. The east coast papers are not a good place to be right now, unfortunately.