FAIRFAX Media received another blow yesterday with Standard and Poor's revising its credit outlook for the under-siege company on the basis of falling advertising revenue. The credit rating agency affirmed its BBB- ratings on Fairfax. But its outlook on the BBB- long-term corporate credit rating had changed to negative, from stable, meaning it was more likely to go down than up. Fairfax closed yesterday at $1.11, down 8.5¢. Read more

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AUSTRALIAN media companies may be poised to follow the lead of their foreign counterparts and begin slashing the value of assets such as broadcast licences and newspapers. With traditional media being hit by a collapsing economy and competition from new media, which leads to more fragmentation and an increased threat from Telstra, book values of assets such as TV licences and newspapers – and the goodwill attached to them – take on a new significance. According to a report released today by Goldman Sachs, Austereo has the highest level of intangibles compared with total assets among all local media companies at 90 per cent. Fairfax, with $3.9 billion in masthead and licence values and another $2.8 billion in goodwill, comes in next ay 78 per cent. Read more

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According to GSJBW, the companies with the highest level of intangible assets relative to total assets are Austereo at 90 per cent and Fairfax Media at 78 per cent. Mr Guerra said the media profit reporting season, which starts when West Australian Newspapers reports its result next Tuesday, may also be worse than he had predicted, despite downgrading his expectations four times in 2008. Read more

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The sale of Southern Star to Endemol is part of moves by Fairfax to pay down debt, with the owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age newspapers struggling under a $2.5 billion debt burden clocked up under former chief executive David Kirk. Read more

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FAIRFAX Media's freshly minted CEO, Brian McCarthy, has begun to unwind the legacy of his predecessor, David Kirk. One of the first is yesterday's sale of Fairfax's Southern Star TV production and distribution business at a loss. Read more

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Fairfax Media is a prime contender for huge write-downs, possibly of a billion or more because of falling revenues and profits from the broadsheet papers, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age. Read more

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Endemol has bought Southern Star Group, Australia's largest independent television production and distribution org, from Fairfax Media. Read more

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The Fairfax broadsheet newspapers are bleeding so fast and so deep that it is now not inconceivable that some time this year they could stop making profits. Read more

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The holiday period has taken its toll on publisher Fairfax Media Ltd's metropolitan mastheads over December, with advertising volumes falling. Fairfax, like all newspaper publishers, is feeling the pinch from the slowing economy as companies pull back their advertising spend. According to broker Goldman Sachs JB Were, across Fairfax's main metropolitan newspapers the average weekly page count fell by 2.8 per cent in December. Read more

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LONDON newspaper The Daily Telegraph has outsourced some of its production work to the other end of the world, with several of its weekly sections to be processed in suburban Sydney. The move comes after Telegraph executives visited the headquarters of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald, last year. Fairfax has outsourced some of its sections to a Pagemasters production hub in Brisbane after cutting about 70 editorial jobs from the Sydney Morning Herald since August, mostly in the subediting area. Pagemasters also handles much of the production and design of APN News & Media's newspapers in New Zealand. Read more

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FAIRFAX Media's so-called "rivers of gold" -- the print classifieds at its two major newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age -- took a pounding in December, with substantial falls in employment, car and real estate ads. Goldman Sachs JBWere's December page count for Fairfax's main metropolitan newspapers -- which measures ad volumes -- showed a 38 per cent fall in average weekly classified pages, as part of an overall weekly page count fall of 2.8 per cent. Read more

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FAIRFAX Media's long-time corporate affairs boss, Bruce Wolpe, is to depart the company to become a senior adviser to Henry Waxman, one of the key congressional players in the agenda of Barack Obama. Mr Wolpe served under Mr Waxman for several years as his legislative director and has a long history with the US Democrats, having served on several political campaigns. Read more

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