As analyst Morton noted, media company profits, while dismally down from their own best years, still look far from disastrous relative to other industries. In 1990, when the whole economy dropped into recession, the average profits of all Fortune 500 industrial companies were down 11.7 percent. This was virtually the same as the 12 percent drop recorded for the publishing and printing industry. More significant in terms of relative health is the issue of how many cents of every dollar of sales showed up as profit on the bottom line. McGraw-Hill's at 9 percent.
Newspapers generally talk about pre-tax profits rather than the bottom line.
One recent estimate is that pre-tax margins for newspapers will be close to 17 percent this year. A similar pattern holds true when one looks at return on equity, which is an investor's method of calculating how much a company earned with each dollar invested in it by its shareholders. The median for all Fortune 500 industrial companies was 13 percent last year. Once-demonized politicians like African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela appear regularly on t my business. And I stand by all the misstatements that I've made. . . .