While avoiding predictions of a full recovery, Dave Swanson, CEO, DexOne (formerly known as R.H. Donnelley), said on this week's first-quarter 2010 earnings call that the company does expect the rate of decline in ad sales to improve sequentially throughout…
On Thursday's earnings call, DexOne (ex-R.H. Donnelley) leaders cautiously projected that the rate of decline in ad sales would improve in 2010, from being down 20 percent in 2009 to down between 12 percent and 15 percent this year. The…
We've been listening to earnings webcasts for the major global directory publishers over the past days, trying to pick up any clues for how publishers see 2010 developing. Most publishers have shortened their guidance horizon or have stopped giving it…
The default strategy for many start-ups is to plan to be acquired by Google or Microsoft. But the M&A scene is much more complex than that. Jordan, Edmiston Group Co-President Tolman Geffs, speaking today at IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting in…
Last week the Australian directory publisher Sensis released its half-year financial results, ended Dec. 31, 2009, which showed pretty strong resilience but nonetheless a meaningful decline in print revenues. For the half-year period, combined print and online Yellow Pages results…
IAC’s ServiceMagic reported today that it saw a 51 percent boost in 4Q revenues, growing from $25.3 million in 2008 to $38.2 million in 2009. The boost was accompanied by 21 percent growth in the number of home and trade…
Less than a month after its peer company Idearc Media emerged from bankruptcy with a new name (SuperMedia) and a new lease on life, R.H. Donnelley has done the same thing. Freshly out of bankruptcy and US$6 billion lighter on…
AT&T released its full-year 2009 earnings today, and its Advertising Solutions unit, which includes print Yellow Pages and Yellowpages.com, posted total revenues of US$4.8 billion, a 12.6 percent decline. AT&T online directories unit Yellowpages.com grew 12.7 percent in Q4, compared…
Venture capital king Frank Quattrone (the banker behind Amazon, Netscape and Cisco) has a message: IPOs have gotten too big, innovation is being stifled, exits are being delayed and firms need straight-forward advice, not Wall Street “casinos.” "Wall Street no…
Idearc Media, which exited bankruptcy on Dec. 31, has changed its name to SuperMedia LLC, as part of an effort to start on a fresh course post-bankruptcy. The restructured company now trades on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol…
New Zealand's Yellow Pages Group posted a net loss after tax of NZ$338 million for the financial year ended June 30, but much of the loss resulted from one-time items. The company actually managed to grow revenues 1.4 percent to…
Reuters is reporting that both Idearc and R.H. Donnelley are close to completing their bankruptcy processes, and are planning to hit the ground running with plans to transform themselves from print-centric to multiproduct businesses. The following quote from Idearc CEO…
Idearc announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas, a move that it signaled in its year-end 2008 earnings announcement, when it indicated some form of bankruptcy filing was likely if not inevitable. Here is how Idearc describes the process…
One day after R.H. Donnelley released its 2008 results showing a sharp drop in ad sales, Idearc followed suit today with annual results that also reflect a very tough Yellow Pages environment in the United States. The big news in…
Last fall, a report from Sequoia Capital was widely circulated, strongly suggesting that companies sit on their capital and wait out what was sure to be a very slow and painful period. Now it’s gotten worse. For the past several…
OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation service, has filed an S1 with the SEC to raise $40 million. The company, founded in 1998 by former Citysearch President Thomas Layton, was launched as Easyseats.com. It currently has contracts with 10,000 restaurants in all 50…
We’re out with our predictions for 2009. But what’s the final word for 2008? Truly, it was a very stimulating and thoughtful year for our local media and commerce industry. But speaking for myself, it’s hard to say whether it…
In disappointing-but-not-unexpected news, Deutsche Bank has discontinued its coverage of local media (i.e., newspapers and television stations). Most of the companies in the space have lost 70 percent to 90 percent of their equity value over the past three months.…
Sami Kassab, analyst on the European Media Research Team at Exane BNP Paribas, gave a data-laden, insightful perspective on the many of the world's largest Yellow Pages publishers in "The Financial View" panel at Directional Media Strategies 2008. Highlights of Kassab's…
On Thursday's second-quarter and first-half earnings call, Yellow Pages Group CEO Marc Tellier made it abundantly clear that his company’s acquisition of Volt Information Sciences was driven by the need to secure strategic technologies and not to gain a toehold in…
