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THE WASHINGTON POST COMPANY 6
Newsweek’s year was outstanding and gratifying. For the second year in the past three,
Newsweek won the National Magazine Award for general excellence. Under editor
Mark Whitaker, the sustained high quality of Newsweek has won us a uniquely strong
audience. Business results improved significantly. Chief executive officer Rick Smith,
president Harold Shain and publisher Greg Osberg share credit for Newsweek’s best
year since 2000.
Shareholders might want to say thank you to Alan Frank, president of Post–Newsweek
Stations. Each of our six television stations had a strong year, three of them as a direct
result of moves Alan made.
The continuing strength of WDIV (NBC–Detroit), KPRC (NBC–Houston) and KSAT
(ABC–San Antonio) has driven our broadcasting results for eight years. These are three
of the strongest local stations in the country, with extraordinary news results and high
margins — suddenly joined by a fourth in WKMG (CBS–Orlando). Henry Maldonado,
longtime promotion/marketing director of WDIV, was put in charge of WKMG two
years ago, and the results have been dramatic. We had traded our Hartford station
for the Orlando station in 1997 and thrown in $60 million; until Henry took over,
the results hadn’t justified the swap. The station is now the market leader in late news
(though the competition is excellent); its margins for the year almost equaled our
station average, for the first time ever.
In Miami, improvement wasn’t as dramatic, but new station manager Dave Boylan
made important changes at WPLG and positioned the station to take advantage of
ABC’s recent comeback.
Finally, at our independent station in Jacksonville, Larry Blackerby looks like the right
man for the job of station manager; profits climbed back to half the level we achieved
as a CBS affiliate (minus network comp), after a very poor 2003. We think we are on
course for a good result in Jacksonville.