The newspaper publisher Knight Ridder, which is seeking a buyer under pressure from its largest shareholders, reported a 22 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings yesterday from a year ago.
The company, which is based in San Jose, Calif., earned $83.3 million, or $1.24 a share, in the three months ended Dec. 25, down from $107.2 million, or $1.38 a share, a year earlier.
The latest results, which include newly acquired papers, came in two cents a share ahead of the expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
The figures from the previous year include 13 cents a share in earnings from newspapers in Tallahassee, Fla., and Detroit that Knight Ridder does not own any more.
Last August, the company sold The Free Press in Detroit to the Gannett Company and swapped The Tallahassee Democrat in Florida plus cash for Gannett newspapers in Idaho and Washington state.
Revenue rose 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter, to $819.9 million from $795.5 million a year ago. Ad sales rose 3 percent, to $659.1 million.
Had Knight Ridder owned the same set of newspapers in both periods, total revenue would have slipped 0.2 percent, and advertising sales would also have fallen 0.2 percent, the company said.
Michael A. Kupinski, an analyst for A. G. Edwards, called the revenue numbers "a little light."
The earnings report was the first since Knight Ridder began actively considering a possible sale of the company. In a conference call with analysts, the chairman of Knight Ridder, Tony Ridder, said he expected to see advertising growth of 3 to 4 percent this year, with more of the growth turning up in the second half of the year. But that is more optimistic than the 2 percent growth that a Merrill Lynch analyst, Lauren Rich Fine, sees occurring throughout the newspaper business.
Despite the upbeat forecast for 2006 growth and an indication from Mr. Ridder that January ad trends were improving, Knight Ridder's shares fell $1.20, or 1.9 percent, to close at $62.25.
Circulation revenue fell 1.2 percent in the quarter and 2.2 percent for the year, assuming the company owned the same papers in both periods. Meanwhile, the number of copies fell 4.1 percent on weekdays and 4.3 percent on Sundays.
