DALLAS — Lower advertising and marketing revenue and higher newsprint and other costs resulted in a third-quarter loss for the parent company of The Dallas Morning News.
DallasNews Corporation reported a loss of $2.6 million for the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, compared with a profit of $1.63 million for the same quarter last year when results were boosted by a one-time tax gain.
Quarterly revenue totaled $37.7 million, down 1.6% from a year ago. Revenue from advertising and marketing services fell 3.2% over the same period.
Revenue from digital-only subscribers rose by $1 million, but was largely offset by a $900,000 decline in print subscription revenue.
The News ended the quarter with 64,172 digital subscribers, up 12.4% from a year ago, said Katy Murray, president of DallasNews Corporation. Combined digital and print subscribers totaled 144,631, down 2.3% from a year ago.
For most regional newspapers, digital subscriptions aren’t growing fast enough to offset losses in print subscribers. The News added 1,484 digital subscribers during the three-month period, but lost 2,918 print customers.
Traffic to the company’s website, Dallasnews.com, has fallen over 30% this year, said CEO Grant Moise in a conference call Wednesday to discuss the financial results.
“Many news companies are experiencing a similar decline in digital audiences and we’re working diligently to improve on those trends,” Moise said.
DallasNews’ media and marketing agency, Medium Giant, just completed “two consecutive quarters of strong sales performance bringing new clients onto our agency roster,” Moise said. “We began to see revenue recognized in the third quarter from those new clients, which provides us a solid foundation of contracted revenue moving forward.”
That new revenue is helping to offset Dallasnews.com advertising declines due to the lower audience levels, Moise said.
On the expense side, the company is seeing higher fuel costs and $700,000 in additional newsprint spending, company executives said.
“While we hope some of those price pressures are temporary, we continue to look at every option we have to minimize the impact of those inflated costs,” Moise said. “All things considered. I’m very pleased with the team’s performance as we continue to remain focused on our long-term strategy of creating a sustainably profitable digital news company.”
The company has no debt and cash of $33 million after receiving a final payment of $22.5 million on the sale of its former headquarters at 508 Young Street. Some of the cash was used to pay a one-time dividend to shareholders that totaled $8 million. The company also contributed $5 million to its pension program.
