Categories: OLD Media Moves

Biz journal owner reports loss, but higher revenues

Minneapolis-based Dolan Media Co., the parent company of weekly business newspapers across the country, reported higher revenue for the third quarter but a loss due to the cost of some redeemable stock. Operating income increased.

The company, which owns the Long Island Business News, Mississippi Business Journal,Â the Colorado Springs Business Journal, the Idaho Business Review and the Daily Journal of Commerce in Portland, Ore., among others, reported that third quarter reveues were $38.3 million, an increase of 33.2 percentÂ from $28.8 million in the same period last year.

This increase in revenues consisted of $5.8 million of increased revenues from organic growth within existing businesses;Â $3.2 million of revenues fromÂ a mortgage default processing services operations in Indiana, whichÂ it acquired in January 2007; and $500,000 inÂ revenues from the Mississippi Business Journal, whichÂ it acquired in March.

Operating income for the third quarter was $8.3 million, or 21.7 percentÂ of revenues, an increase of 17.9 percentÂ from $7.0 million, which was 24.5 percentÂ of revenues in the same prior-year period. The net loss for the quarter was $7.5 million, equal to the same quarter in 2006.

The company’s division that operates the business newspapersÂ reported revenues of $21.0 million, an increase of 17.7 percentÂ from $17.8 million for the same prior-year period.

The business newspaper division sawÂ a 13.5 percentÂ year-over-year increase in display and classified advertising revenues and a 40.6 percentÂ year-over-year increase in public notice revenues. Circulation revenues declined to $3.2 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, 2007, compared to $3.4 million for three months a year earlier. The revenue increase is also partially attributed to the addition of the Mississippi Business Journal, which the company acquired from Venture Publications in March.Â Â

Dolan Media went public earlier this year and has seen its stock price increase by more than 50 percent.

Read the rest of the release here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.