Miami Herald May Be For Sale

Miami, FL (AHN) - The McClatchy Company, the nation's third-largest newspaper chain, may be putting the Miami Herald up for sale, the New York Times reported.

The Times, quoting anonymous sources, said McClatchy has approached several buyers, but these sources said they knew of no serious offers, reflecting investors' reluctance in putting money into the struggling newspaper industry. A McClatchy official would not comment on what she called 'market rumors."

The Miami Herald is one of McClatchy's biggest 30 daily newspapers. It has a circulation of 210,000. It is also one of its most prestigious papers, with 19 Pulitzer Prizes.

But the paper has slim operating margins, and its most attractive quality may be the prime waterfront building it occupies in downtown Miami.

McClatchy paid Knight-Ridder $4.5 billion for the paper in 2006, leading many analysts to say the Sacramento, Calif. company overpaid. Since then, steep advertising declines plagued the industry as a whole. Florida's real estate market took a larger hit than most other areas of the country, causing drastic advertising sales declines at the Herald.

McClatchy's ad revenue fell 14.7 percent in the rest of the country through the first 10 months of the year, and 22.5 percent in Florida and California, the Times reported.

McClatchy reported a third-quarter income of $4.2 million on $451.6 million in revenue. Its stock closed on Friday at $2 per share, a marked difference from when it topped $75 a share in 2005.