PUBLIC COMPANIES: MEDIA / MARKETING
Monday, April 24, 2000; Page F34 Gannett Co.
1100 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, Va. 22234
703-284-6000
www.gannett.com
Founded: 1906
Fiscal year: Dec. 27
Revenue: $5.3 billion
Net income: $957.9 million
Earnings per share: $3.40
Dividend: 82 cents
Stockholders' equity: $4.6 billion
Return on equity: 20 percent
Stock: GCI (NYSE)
Assets: $9.0 billion
Market capitalization: $17.3 billion
52-week high: $83.62 1/2 (12/28/1999)
52-week low: $61.31 1/4 (2/28/2000)
Chairman and CEO: John J. Curley
President: Douglas H. McCorkindale
Employees: 45,400
Local employees: 1,500
DESCRIPTION: Gannett is the nation's largest newspaper chain, with 74 daily publications and a combined paid circulation of 6.7 million. This includes USA Today, the country's biggest-selling daily newspaper, with a circulation of 2.2 million. Newsquest PLC, a wholly owned Gannett subsidiary acquired in mid-1999, is the largest regional newspaper publisher in England, with 11 daily newspapers and a combined circulation of approximately 460,000. Gannett also owns 22 television stations that reach 17.4 percent of the U.S. market.
DEVELOPMENTS: Gannett shuffled its print and electronic portfolio--and achieved some notable milestones--in a year marked by bombshell developments in the media world.
In March, Gannett formally acquired WJXX-TV, the ABC affiliate in Jacksonville, Fla., from Allbritton Jacksonville Inc. for an undisclosed sum.
In January, it sold Multimedia Cablevision Inc. to Cox Communications for approximately $2.7 billion in cash.
In November, USA Today inched past the Wall Street Journal in circulation, making it the nation's largest newspaper for the first time, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
In June, Gannett agreed to acquire Newsquest for about $1.7 billion in cash and assumed debt, its biggest investment outside the United States.
In May, USA Today announced that it would begin selling advertising space on its front page--considered by many media purists to be sacred news space. Projected annual windfall: $5 million.
America Online Inc.
22000 AOL Way
Dulles, Va. 20166
703-448-8700
www.aol.com
Founded: 1985
Fiscal year: June 30
Revenue: $4.8 billion
Net income: $762.0 million
Earnings per share: 30 cents
Dividend: None
Stockholders' equity: $3.0 billion
Return on equity: 25 percent
Stock: AOL (NYSE)
Assets: $5.3 billion
Market capitalization: $125.5 billion
52-week high: $95.81 1/4 (12/13/1999)
52-week low: $38.46 7/8 (8/5/1999)
Chairman and CEO: Steve Case
President and COO: Bob Pittman
Employees: 14,000
Local employees: 3,500
DESCRIPTION: America Online may be best known for its flagship Internet service--the largest in the world, with more than 22 million members--but the company now also owns a string of other popular Internet properties including online service CompuServe Inc., browser maker Netscape Communications Corp. and chat service ICQ ("I Seek You"). In a historic announcement in January, AOL said it would acquire media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. The merger awaits federal regulatory approval.
DEVELOPMENTS: Technically, the company's "AOL Anywhere" campaign refers to its push to make the service available through cell phones, hand-held computers and other gadgets. But it may as well describe AOL's new reach into everything from discount stores to magazines.
The company's recent deal to acquire Time Warner for $183 billion was only the highlight of a year of headline news.
As AOL stock soared along with that of the rest of the dot-com industry, it went on a spending spree for both acquisitions and partnerships.
In December it used an undisclosed amount of that stock to buy Tegic Communications, a Seattle-based maker of software that facilitates text entry via telephone keypads, and $1.1 billion worth of shares to purchase Mapquest.com Inc., a mapping and direction service that maintains the most popular travel site on the Internet.
AOL has also increasingly moved its footprints from the virtual world to the bricks-and-mortar one. It has inked multimillion-dollar marketing alliances with Blockbuster Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Circuit City Stores Inc. It also announced partnerships with Compaq Computer Corp., Casio Computer Co. and other hardware makers.
As a result of income from these and other advertising and marketing deals, the service now relies less on subscriber fees than do other Internet access providers. But while its competitors Yahoo Inc., Juno Online Service Inc. and others last year announced free Internet access, AOL has said it will not follow suit, although it will offer discounted service to Wal-Mart customers.
Its membership rolls ballooned from 15 million at the start of 1999 to more than 22 million, making it six times the size of its nearest competitor, the combined EarthLink-MindSpring service, EarthLink Inc.
With its dominant share of subscribers, AOL is quickly becoming an e-commerce powerhouse. In a holiday season of record e-commerce sales across the World Wide Web, AOL members spent an eye-popping $2.5 billion online.
Meanwhile, AOL has run into some trouble with consumers and competitors. Angry users have filed more than a dozen lawsuits across the country demanding billions of dollars because its version 5.0 software under some circumstances commandeers computers and prevents consumers from accessing competing services. Its high-profile war with Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Corp. over allowing the companies' members to use their own software to communicate with AOL continues to rage, and several U.S. senators recently chastised the online giant for not living up to its promises to work with them to develop compatible software.
AOL's marriage to Time Warner promises new online content and the cable lines AOL needs to deliver high-speed Internet access to homes.
Industry analysts say its dizzying expansion means that AOL is poised to be the all-in-one communications company of the 21st century, combining what the world now thinks of as separate media, telecommunications and Internet realms.
The Washington Post Co.
1150 15th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20071
202-334-6000
www.washpostco.com
Founded: 1877
Fiscal year: Jan. 2
Revenue: $2.2 billion
Net income: $225.8 million
Earnings per share: $22.30
Dividend: $5.20
Stockholders' equity: $1.4 billion
Return on equity: 16 percent
Stock: WPO (NYSE)
Assets: $3.0 billion
Market capitalization: $4.6 billion
52-week high: $587 (1/13/2000)
52-week low: $472 (3/13/2000)
Chairman and CEO; publisher, The Washington Post: Donald E. Graham
Employees: 9,010
Local employees: 3,805
DESCRIPTION: The Washington Post Co. owns The Washington Post and other media businesses, including Newsweek magazine, cable TV systems, six television stations and the Gazette newspapers of Maryland. Through Washingtonpost.Newseek Interactive, its Internet division, it runs the washingtonpost.com and newsweek.com Web sites. Its Kaplan Inc. subsidiary is a leading operator of career fairs and provides test preparation and other educational services.
DEVELOPMENTS: The Post company's growing investments on the Internet frontier in 1999 underscore the central role the Web will play in the company's future. While The Post's financial core remains its established media businesses, it spent $95 million last year in new ventures, four involving the Internet, which reduced operating income for 1999 by 16 percent. The Post plans to invest $130 million more in these areas in 2000 to expand its Internet news sites, a Web portal for Washington area community activities and Internet-based classified advertising operations. In March, the Post company president and chief operating officer, Alan G. Spoon, resigned to join a venture capital firm. Boisfeuillet Jones Jr., president of The Washington Post newspaper, was promoted in January to associate publisher, directing news operations.
Snyder Communications Inc.
6903 Rockledge Dr.
Bethesda, Md. 20817
301-468-1010
www.snyder.com
Founded: 1988
Fiscal year: Dec. 31
Revenue: $638.5 million
Net income: $5.5 million
Earnings per share: 23 cents
Dividend: None
Stockholders' equity: $271.5 million
Return on equity: 2 percent
Stock: SNC (NYSE)
Assets: $786.5 million
Market capitalization: $1.3 billion
52-week high: $27 (3/3/2000)
52-week low: $11.75 (10/15/1999)
Chairman and CEO: Daniel M. Snyder
President and COO: Michele D. Snyder
Employees: 7,441
Local employees: 1,218
DESCRIPTION: Snyder Communications is a marketing communications firm that offers advertising, direct marketing and interactive marketing services, including Web site development. Snyder's clients are mostly Fortune 500 companies, including Procter & Gamble Co., Visa USA Inc., Microsoft Corp. and McDonald's Corp. It also has many new dot-com Internet company customers.
DEVELOPMENTS: In February, Snyder agreed to be acquired by Havas Advertising of France for stock worth about $2.1 billion. The deal is expected to close by midyear.
It's considered to be a good deal for the company's chairman, Daniel M. Snyder, 35, who has become a local celebrity of late as the principal owner of the Washington Redskins. Havas will pay Snyder stockholders about $29.50 per share in the deal. Snyder personally will get more than $275 million in Havas stock for his 9.4 million shares of the company.
Snyder had hired investment firm Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown in December to handle the sale of the company after an unsolicited offer by a London firm put Snyder Communications in play. Havas said it expects to cut $3 million from Snyder's annual expenses, including job cuts at its Bethesda offices.
Disappointed by a falling stock price that last reached its peak in 1998, Snyder reorganized the company last October. He spun off a health-care marketing division, called Ventive Health Inc. and consolidated Internet services into a group called Circle.com, which now has its own tracking stock.
Radio One Inc.
5900 Princess Garden Pkwy. Eighth Floor
Lanham, Md. 20706
301-306-1111
Founded: 1980
Fiscal year: Dec. 31
Revenue: $93.3 million
Net income: $133,000
Loss per share: 8 cents
Dividend: None
Stockholders' equity: $420.3 million
Return on equity: 0 percent
Stock: ROIA (Nasdaq)
Assets: $527.5 million
Market capitalization: $1.4 billion
52-week high: $97.50 (12/8/1999)
52-week low: $24 (5/5/1999)
President and CEO:
Alfred C. Liggins III
CFO: Scott R. Royster
Employees: 700
Local employees: 250
DESCRIPTION: Radio One operates several dozen radio stations serving primarily African American listeners in markets such as Atlanta, Detroit and Washington.
DEVELOPMENTS: Radio One, a company that started in 1980 as a one-woman operation in Northeast Washington, has grown into a 48-station radio empire with national reach.
With Alfred C. Liggins III, president and chief executive of the Lanham-based company, and Scott R. Royster, executive vice president and chief financial officer, at its helm, Radio One went public last May and set about systematically acquiring urban stations around the country to expand its footprint and increase revenues. The biggest of those deals came in March, when Radio One bought 21 stations, most from Clear Channel Communications, in a $1.36 billion deal.
The company, which is now both the largest African American media company and the largest African American-controlled public company, says it will continue to acquire stations in the top urban markets as they become available.
Catherine L. Hughes, the African American activist and former talk-show host who started Radio One's flagship talk-radio station, WOL, handed over the reigns to Liggins, her son, in 1989. She remains involved in the day-to-day operations through Radio One's office in Baltimore.
© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company
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