• by Melynda Fuller , July 30, 2018

McClatchy reported its second-quarter 2018 results last week, revealing overall losses while showing growth across its digital enterprises. McClatchy has been investing in its digital initiatives of late.  

The company reported a net loss of $20.4 million in the second quarter on revenues of $204 million, compared to a net loss of $37.4 million during the second quarter of 2017. This year’s numbers represent a total loss of 9.2%. 

Despite digital subscriptions rising 34.5% from the second quarter of 2017 to 122,400 in the second quarter of 2018, a dip in print subscriptions didn’t allow those additional numbers to make up the difference.

Total audience revenues were down by 5.7% to $84.8 million. 

Additional digital gains were seen across advertising where digital-only advertising revenues grew by 20.2%, now surpassing print newspaper ad revenue. Total digital-only revenue increased by 21.8%.

Revenues exclusive of print newspaper advertising accounted for 80.4% of total revenues in the second quarter of 2018, up from 74.7% in the second quarter of 2017. 

Despite these numbers, advertising revenues were down by 15.6% at $206.8 million, compared to the same period last year. 

McClatchy reports $20.1 million in cash with a net debt of $689.4 million. The company refinanced its debt capital structure on July 16^th.  

Craig Forman, McClatchy's president and CEO, stated the company "completed the refinancing of the vast majority of our debt earlier this month, which provides us more runway for our digital transformation. We reduced our first-lien debt by 10% to $310 million and extended the nearest-maturity debt to 2026, eight years from now.”

Overall, the company reports a loss of $59.3 million for the first half of 2018. The net loss for the first half of 2017 was $133 million.

The company also reported its average total of unique visitors across its network of products at 65.6 million during the second quarter.