MCLEAN, Va. – Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) reported today that preliminary 2008 fourth quarter earnings per diluted share from continuing operations were $0.69 compared with $1.06 per share in the fourth quarter of 2007.

The preliminary results for the quarter include $56 million in pre-tax severance expenses ($36.1 million after tax or $0.16 per share) related to restructuring and efficiency efforts in the U.S. and the UK. Absent severance expenses in the quarter, the company’s preliminary earnings would have been $0.85 per share. Pre-tax severance expenses and facility consolidation costs totaled approximately $38 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 ($24.4 million after-tax or $0.11 per share).

The preliminary results, however, do not include non-cash charges expected to be recorded in the quarter, which have not yet been finalized, for the impairment of goodwill, other intangible assets and certain other assets. The non-cash charges are expected to total in the range of $5.1 billion to $5.9 billion on a pre-tax basis and $4.5 billion to $5.2 billion on an after-tax basis. In the fourth quarter a year ago, the company recognized a pre-tax, non-cash impairment charge of $72.0 million ($50.8 million after-tax or $0.22 per share).
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Through Billions of Searches in 2008, People Sought to Make Sense of the World Around Them, Witnessing a Year of Passionate Politics, Olympic Records, New Celebrities on the Rise and Market Meltdowns

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) announced the most popular searches, themes, and trends as part of its 2008 Year in Review (yearinreview.yahoo.com), as told through the billions of searches conducted by millions of Yahoo! users around the globe every month.

“Every day, people turn to the web to learn more about the world around them. Their searches reveal which news events, personalities and issues made an impact in 2008,” said Heather Cabot, Yahoo! Web Life Editor. “This year people were captivated by the historic U.S. Presidential election and Olympic triumphs. They also closely followed every facet of the economic downturn and enjoyed a little escapism by devouring celebrity gossip and delving into online video games.”

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- Yahoo! Breaks Audience Record and Wins 2008 Election!
Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) today released new comScore Media Metrix figures showing that Yahoo! News attracted 7.6 million unique users on Election Day, November 4, the largest single-day audience in online news history. Yahoo!’s Election Day victory caps a banner year for Yahoo!’s media properties, which served as the #1 online destination consumers turned to in the U.S. for major news events including the Election, the Olympics and the financial crisis.
“Yahoo! has established itself as the first place consumers turn to online for major events, and the 2008 Presidential election was no exception,” said Neeraj Khemlani, vice president and general manager of Yahoo! News. “What sets Yahoo! apart from the competition is a holistic approach that brings together the best of Yahoo! regardless of how users access our sites. Whether a user starts on the Yahoo! homepage, accesses information directly through web or mobile search, or goes directly to our news site, the end result is an unmatched user experience for the Internet’s largest audience.”

MCLEAN, Va. – Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI) reported that 2008 third quarter earnings per diluted share from continuing operations were $0.69 compared with $1.01 per share in the third quarter of 2007. The results for the quarter include $23.0 million in pre-tax severance expenses ($14.4 million after tax or $0.07 per share) related to reductions in force and efficiency efforts in the U.S. and the UK. Absent severance expenses in the quarter, the company would have earned $0.76 per share.

As previously reported, the company acquired all of its partners’ ownership stakes in ShopLocal LLC on June 30, 2008. In addition, the company acquired an additional 10 percent stake in CareerBuilder increasing its ownership to 50.8 percent on September 3, 2008. The results for ShopLocal and CareerBuilder were fully consolidated beginning in the seventh and ninth periods, respectively. Prior to these acquisitions the company’s equity share of CareerBuilder and ShopLocal results was reported as equity earnings. Beginning with the third quarter, a new “Digital” business segment is being reported which includes CareerBuilder and ShopLocal results from the date of full consolidation as well as PointRoll, Planet Discover and Schedule Star. Prior period results for PointRoll, Planet Discover and Schedule Star have been reclassified from the publishing segment to the digital segment.
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August 27, 2008 – Carat, the leading independent media communications agency, today issued revised forecasts for global advertising expenditure in 2008 and 2009. The worldwide prediction for 2008 is revised downwards by just over a percentage point from 6.0% to 4.9%. 2009 is also very slightly reduced, from 4.9% growth to 4.8%. Read the full story

I barely got the time to bitch point out DoubleClick’s apathy in updating us, and they announced that their in-stream platform can now power video advertising in Silverlight 2 players, in addition to Flash, RealMedia, and Windows Media.

The new feature doesn’t seem to have propagated in all DFP accounts yet, and the knowledge base doesn’t seem to include any new entries about streaming Silverlight. I’ll let you enjoy the feature announcement in full, below.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (August 05, 2008) –Today, DoubleClick, a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, announced the new capability to serve video ads into Microsoft Silverlight 2 video environments. The move is part of DoubleClick’s ongoing effort to help clients maximize the yield on their advertising inventory as they deliver content into emergent online, video and mobile channels.

With this new feature of DoubleClick In-Stream, DoubleClick clients such as NBC Universal Digital Media are able to monetize video content played within the Silverlight 2 player. NBCOlympics.com, a division of NBC Universal, will be one of the first sites to open Silverlight 2 content up to advertisers with DoubleClick In-Stream. The solution carves out new video inventory across 2,500 hours of video content running as part of NBC’s Olympics coverage.
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I’ll be stepping away from the Eyeblaster creative zone (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) and bring to your attention a campaign that I have completely missed if it wasn’t for Martina at Adverblog.com to post about it: the We8 side of Coke.

It’s not that I haven’t seen traces of this campaign (bumped into a few roadblock ads, closed them as soon as possible and browsed on) but it was just not memorable enough. Eye-candy, yes. Efficient? I wouldn’t think so.

What is it?

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