Earnings Preview: New York Times To Post 3Q Report

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times Co. is set to report financial results for the third quarter on Thursday ahead of the opening bell. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

OVERVIEW: The Times Co. is the third major newspaper company to report quarterly earnings this month, and results already out from Gannett Co. and McClatchy Co. suggest the publisher likely suffered a quarter of dismal advertising sales.

McClatchy, which publishes the Miami Herald and other dailies, and Gannett, the biggest newspaper owner in the U.S., both saw ad revenue drop 28 percent year-over-year. Times Co. ad sales have seen roughly similar declines this year.

The latest figures were slightly better than those from the first half of 2009, before the economy started showing signs of improvement. Comparisons to last year should be getting easier because ad revenue had already begun to fall off quickly in 2008.

Painful cost cutting has kept the big publishers profitable. After a nearly $75 million loss in the first three months of the year, the Times Co. made $39 million in the second quarter.