We Want Media

Print and broadcast are dicey businesses these days. Just take it from a Wall Street financial adviser who cautioned clients to “steer clear” from putting stock in Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States.

One day after Gannett announced that its ad revenue for this quarter had taken a 3.8-percent nosedive, Morgan Stanley analyst Lisa Monaco had this to say about putting stock in the famed publisher in a note to a client:

“Revenues look to be far from reaching some sort of a trough and until we see some indication of stabilization we would steer clear from owning the shares.”

The announcement prompted a domino effect that left shares of major American pubishers—New York Times Co., Tribune Co., E.W. Scripps Co.—down on Friday. The message is not new, but it certainly remains bleak: newspapers and broadcast are in the red and no one has the business model solution.

That said, they are not disappearing—the business model is shifting. A savvy investor might just want to keep her stock in the media.