Pruitt sees bright future, thanks to Knight Ridder

Here's part of a memo from Gary Pruitt forwarded to us by Larry Froelich. Click on the headline to read the full memo on our website.

Here's Gary:

First, our cash profits are greater for having done the deal.

Second, remember the advertising growth I mentioned earlier? Well, if we hadn’t acquired Knight Ridder, McClatchy would have suffered an advertising revenue decline last year instead of a gain. In other words, the Knight Ridder papers have improved McClatchy’s performance.

Third, the Knight Ridder deal made McClatchy a more formidable internet presence, with expected internet revenues of nearly $200 million this year. The new scale of our internet operations also allows us to advantageously partner with large technology companies. We will be sharing news about this with you as partnerships emerge.

Most important, with the Knight Ridder acquisition, we’ve added thousands of talented colleagues, outstanding newspapers, websites and specialty publications, and more growth markets to our already strong and successful portfolio. The integration of McClatchy and Knight Ridder has gone exceptionally well. We are bigger, stronger, more diversified and more competitive than ever before.

As part of our analysis of the Knight Ridder deal, we sold 13 newspapers – 12 former Knight Ridder papers and one McClatchy paper. These were difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions. But they were made with the best long_term interests of the company in mind and at heart. As a result, our 31 daily and 50 weekly papers, our internet operations and our other businesses all share a brighter future.