If you think the morning Arizona Daily Star is worth less these days than it used to be, you’re not alone - so do the people who publish it. Lee Enterprises last week said it is reducing by $90.4 million the value of its Tucson operations.

In its annual report issued at the end of September 2007, Lee Enterprises said its half ownership of Tucson Newspapers was worth $166.7 million, which included $85.3 million in goodwill and $78.6 million in intangible assets.

In other words, last week Lee Enterprises said the Star is worth 54 percent less than it was valued on the books. The other half of Tucson Newspapers is owned by Gannett, which publishes the Tucson Citizen.

Lee Enterprises, based in Davenport, Iowa, acquired the Star in June 2005 when it bought all of Pulitzer Publishing Co. for $1.46 billion.

The Tucson markdown was part of $722 million Lee took as non-cash impairments to its financial statements for the first three months of this year. The company announced the charges in a filing May 14 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Lee had warned that markdowns of as much as $700 million were coming a month ago when it initially reported its quarterly financials. Now, as a result of the revised figures, Lee Enterprises reports it lost $716.4 million for the three months ended March 31, up from a loss of $4.45 million it had first reported. A year ago, Lee showed a profit of $11.9 million for the quarter.

In last week’s SEC filing, Lee said the re-evaluation was mainly due to the increasing difference between its stock price and the per-share value it was carrying on the books for its assets.

"Recent deterioration in the company’s revenue and the overall recessionary operating environment for the company and other publishing companies were also factors in the timing of the analysis," the company said.

Rising star out the door

From rising star to out the door in one year’s time: Adam Johnston is no longer the general sales manager at Journal Broadcast Group’s KGUN 9. Word on the street is he was terminated.

Johnston, who had been one of two local sales managers at NBC in Chicago, arrived in April 2007 and at the time thought he was coming to work with Andrew Stewart as his general manager. But two weeks before Johnston got here, Stewart jumped ship and went to work as the general manager at KWBA 58/cable 8.

Johnston came anyway and at the time said he was looking forward to getting out of the frenzied atmosphere of Chicago and working at a station he felt had its priorities in the right perspective.

But, as time went along, Johnston apparently didn’t slow his style enough for some, causing friction with a few account executives, some of whom subsequently left.

What may have really done Johnston in, though, is a dispute over advertising rates he had with with media buyer Kathy Levitz which wound up with KGUN no longer airing commercials for Sam Levitz Furniture stores, a loss estimated to be about $7,000 a month in advertising. Compounding that, KGUN was also the station that produced Levitz’ commercials so the station lost that revenue as well.

The only thing to be determined now is how quickly KGUN and Levitz will patch things up.

Radio ratings shuffled

It’s always a gamble to try to read too much into ratings but the inference from Arbitron’s latest quarterly radio ratings might be that Tucson is tired of talking - nearly all of the talk radio stations saw declining numbers in the latest numbers, Jan. 10 - April 2.

Clear Channel’s KNST 790-AM saw ratings among its core audience of 25 to 54-year-olds drop, most noticeably in afternoon drive where a contract dispute caused the station to replace Michael Savage with Mark Levin. A bright spot for the station was its local morning show, hosted by Jim Parisi, which was up 28 percent among 25 to 54-year-old listeners to average 3,200 per quarter hour.

The one exception to the down ratings among the talk stations was the Jolt KJLL 1330-AM, which saw its overall average audience more than double. The numbers are comparatively small - going from an average of 500 listeners per quarter hour to 1,400, but it was enough to make it the second highest rated talk station in the market this go around. Still, though, it was No. 19 overall. See what I mean about tired of talk? It’s also worth noting the Stephanie Miller show in the morning averaged 2,800 listeners per quarter hour, an increase of 4½ times the audience her show had three months earlier.

As for the other big ratings change in the market, Citadel’s rebranding of KHYT 107.5-FM from classic rock to classic hits seems to have done the trick, not only for itself but for its former archrival, Lotus’ KLPX 96.1-FM, which is now the No. 1-rated station in the market among men 25-54 years old, its core audience. But KHYT bounced up to No. 3, from No. 7, in the same demographic.

Otherwise, check out the chart to see how the rest of the stations did by clicking on "Tucson radio ratings" in Related Links below. 

Clear Channel has a deal

Both sides have patched up differences and two lawsuits are being called after an agreement was reached last week for private-equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital to buy out Clear Channel Communications. Six banks agreed to finance the deal at $36 per share, which brought the value down to $17.9 billion from $19.4 billion.

In the meantime, Clear Channel was the last of the publicly-traded companies with Tucson outlets to report its first-quarter financials - something the company won’t have to do once they’re private.

The company said it made profit of $799.7 million the first three months of the year, up from from $102.2 million for the same quarter a year ago. The big jump was attributed to assets it sold off in preparation for the private buyout and investment gains. Revenues from continuing operations were up 1 percent.

Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.