Knight Ridder fourth quarter ad revenue shows modest increase, boosts earnings

(AP) Knight Ridder, the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, reported a 2 percent increase in fourth quarter earnings Jan. 20 as advertising revenues edged up 0.3 percent.

Knight Ridder, which publishes 31 newspapers including the Philadelphia Daily News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, (State College) Centre Daily Times and the (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader, earned $99 million in the three-month period ending Dec. 28, compared with $96.6 million in the same period a year ago.

Earnings per share were equivalent to $1.22 versus $1.16 a year ago and one penny above the estimate of Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

Total revenue rose 2 percent to $772.9 million from $759.3 million in the same period a year ago.

Advertising revenue for the quarter was $600.1 million, just above the $598 million a year ago.

Knight Ridder Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder said the year concluded on a "positive note," with advertising revenues up 1.4 percent in December, the best performance since April. For all of 2003, advertising revenue was $2.21 billion, essentially unchanged from last year.

"To our disappointment, the industrywide advertising recession that began in early 2001 persisted through 2003," Ridder said. He noted that help-wanted advertising in large markets was still soft, and retail advertising was hurt by cutbacks by department stores.

For the full year, Knight Ridder earned $296.1 million, up 15 percent from $257.5 million in 2002, while revenues rose 0.5 percent to $2.86 billion from $2.84 billion. Per-share earnings were $3.63 for 2003 compared with $3.33 in 2002.

Chief Financial Officer Gary Effren said that the company believed that analysts' current estimates for full-year earnings of $4.00 for 2004 were "achievable."