This may be as historic an event as any in the newspaper industry: Scripps, among the first newspaper chains ever founded in U.S. (starting in 1878) may sell off its 18 newspaper properties to concentrate on its more profitable Internet and cable holdings, Bloomberg reports. Speaking at the Citigroup investment conference on Wednesday, Joe Necastro, Scripps’ CFO, said that the Cincinnati-based company has been considering selling its newspaper group for the past six months. Necastro said the company doesn’t want an asset that could generate less cash next year than this year. The newspaper division is the company’s second-largest. That division had $167.9 million in Q3 operating revenues, about twice as much as Scripps’ broadcasting division, but lagging Scripps Networks cable operation. Taking a larger view, revenue from Scripps’ newspapers has declined from 55 percent of sales in 2000 to less than 25 percent. The company has said it expects newspaper revenue to grow in the “low single digits” in 2007, slower than sales at its websites, which include Shopzilla.com and Bizrate.com, and cable channels, which include The Food Network and HGTV. Newspaper costs rose an estimated 5 percent last quarter. Investors on Wednesday cheered the news: company shares rose $1.92, or 3.8 percent, to close at $51.92 after trading at more than double its average volume. Earlier in the session, the stock traded as high as $52.15, eclipsing a previous 52-week high of $51.09.
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