Lee Enterprises reports fiscal 1Q profit, helped by one-time gain and smaller ad drop

Lee Enterprises reports fiscal 1Q profit

DAVENPORT, Iowa — Newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises Inc. posted another quarterly profit Tuesday, helped by an accounting gain, falling costs and a smaller drop in ad revenue.

Like other publishers, Lee has been trimming expenses to deal with a prolonged slump in advertising. It was Lee’s second quarterly profit in a row even as the recession and the shift of readers to the Web have combined to cut ad revenue by as much as a third at some newspapers.

Lee, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and dozens of other newspapers, offered a bright note Tuesday, saying ad trends improved throughout its fiscal first quarter which ended Dec. 27.

“The improved trend appears to be continuing into January and February,” CEO Mary Junck said in a statement.

Lee’s ad revenue dropped 16.4 percent from the year-ago quarter, but that compares with a 23.8 percent decline in the fiscal fourth quarter.

Still, publishers now face easier year-over-year comparisons because ad revenue was already taking a dive toward the end of 2008. A year ago, Lee reported a 15.2 percent drop in ad revenue from 2007 levels.

For the most recent quarter, Lee said it earned $27.9 million, or 62 cents per share. It lost $48.7 million, or $1.10 per share, a year earlier.

Stripping out a $31.1 million accounting gain for lower medical liabilities and other one-time items, earnings came to 25 cents per share. That’s up a penny from the comparable figure a year ago.

Overall revenue slid 14 percent to $209.8 million from $243.6 million a year ago.