McClatchy Shares At 52-Week Low

Shares of Sacramento Bee publisher continues to fall


In NYSE trading yesterday, shares of McClatchy Inc. (MNI) closed at a 52-week low of 52¢ per share. MNI has traded as high as $11.21 in the last 52 weeks.

While there was no particular news that drove MNI's price down, the entire newspaper industry continues to be hampered by the worldwide recession and flight of readers and advertisers to the internet. Ironically, while newspapers look to their internet sites as a sort of white knight, Business Week reports local advertising dollars on the internet are expected to show very little growth this year.

Local interactive advertising is headed for a big slowdown this year, according to Borrell Associates, an online advertising researcher. This year "will be the first in many in which some components of interactive advertising show little or no growth, or may even decline," Borrell said in a November report. The market will grow 4.7%, to $13.3 billion in 2009, after 50% growth in 2008, Borrell says. And don't expect a rebound when the economy recovers. The market shows "no sign of improving quickly, irrespective of upward movement in the nation's economy," the report goes on to say.