2004 LOOKS GOOD FOR NEWSPAPERS.

Publicly traded newspaper companies are generally upbeat about the prospects for the rest of this quarter and the entire 2004 year, a review of earnings reports indicates.

Ten of the 14 companies that are tracked have given the investment community guidance on potential earnings in

Dallas' Belo Corp. said that it was expecting newspaper revenue to grow between eight and nine percent this month and that for the second quarter it was expecting to see "mid-to-high, single-digit" increases in "every major advertising category, including employment."

Financial and community newspaper publisher Dow Jones is predicting that its earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter ending June 30 will be in the "mid-30 cents per share range," the company said. In 2003, the quarter's EPS was 27 cents.

At Milwaukee's Journal Communications Inc., the company said that it believed that operating revenue will be between $200 million and $205 million and that net earnings will be between $15 million and $18 million, or about 21 cents a share.

Robert Jelenic, chief executive of Journal Register Co. of Trenton, N.J., is optimistic about the coming year. "Looking at 2004, and based on our current projections, we expect to report earnings for the full year 2004 within the current range of analysts' estimates of $1.19 to $1.29 per diluted share," he said.

Also upbeat about employment advertising is the Richmond, Va.-based multimedia company Media General Inc.: the company said that it expects its publishing division to see revenue grow about five percent in the second quarter, which "reflected continued growth in employment linage."

In Sacramento, at The McClatchy Co., the newspaper publisher said that it expects ad revenue growth in the "mid-single digits in the second quarter." The company said that it expects its EPS to range between 80 cents and 82 cents when a debt-refinancing write-off is taken.

Giving only estimates for its "total company advertising revenue" for the year, The New York Times Co. said, "Growth rate expected to be in the mid-single digits." For diluted EPS, the company said, "Growth rate expected to be in the low- to mid-single digits over 2003 EPS of $1.98."

Robert Woodworth, president and chief executive for Pulitzer Inc. of St. Louis said, "As we look ahead, our solid first-quarter performance leads us to reaffirm the guidance we provided last December of full-year 2004 base earnings of at least $2.10 per fully diluted share. This view assumes the continued health of our key advertising segments."

The E.W. Scripps Co. of Cincinnati said it expects newspaper advertising revenue for the second quarter to be up four to eight percent over last year and that its EPS will be between 92 cents and $1.02; last year the EPS in the second quarter was 80 cents, including investment write-downs.

The Tribune Co. said that it expects to meet its earlier predictions for the entire 2004 year of consolidated revenue growth of about six percent, "including about one percent from new publications."

There were some weasel words in some of the predictions, but mostly the newspaper companies are predicting good, solid growth over the next couple of months, which should help prop up the always slow third quarter.