Moody's Warns on Media Companies

Debt rating agency Moody's has come out with a "bottom rung" list of the 283 companies that it thinks are most likely to default on their debts in the coming year. David Weir, a colleague of mine on BNET, covers the media and put together the media companies on the bottom rung list. I went through and found the ones more likely to be using writers (I'm including links so you can check to see if they own any of your outlets):

• Cumulus Media (operates radio stations in mid-sized and smaller markets)


• Freedom Communications (many daily and weekly newspapers and eight television stations)


• GateHouse Media (big newspaper publisher of dailies, free and paid weeklies, and shoppers)


• MediaNews Group (operates 54 dailies in 11 states, a television station in Alaska, and radio stations in Texas)


• Morris Publishing Group (13 dailies, 28 weeklies, four city magazines in Georgia and Florida, and Skirt! magazine)


• Radio One (various media focused on African-American audiences, including radio stations, a television cable channel, GIANT magazine, and online/interactive media)


• The Reader's Digest Association (besides the obvious, many magazines, online properties, and book publishing to boot)


• Spanish Broadcasting System (radio stations, television programming, and online)


• Univision Communications (Spanish-language television, radio, and interactive media)

As far back as I can remember, this sort of broad warning from a rating agency is unprecedented. Moody's was one of the companies smacked about for not having given a more honest appraisal of the various collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that have become a financial plague.

Continuing the bad news, if you write for newspapers, you need to click on that link to David's piece, because he also has Time's deathwatch list of ten major metropolitan dailies, including the Boston Globe and the Miami Herald.

Doing work for a company in dire financial straits is a gamble. The company could become increasingly slow in paying, might go into bankruptcy (tying up any invoice you have outstanding), or might even simply go out of business. In writing for such a company, you have to go in with your eyes open and treat the income as "extra," and not something critical to keeping food in the fridge and a roof over your head.