The Bloomington Pantagraph and more than 70 other daily newspapers nationwide owned by Quad Cities-based Lee Enterprises are now in the fourth day of a technology outage that has halted delivery of its print editions and emailed electronic editions.
“Lee Enterprises is experiencing company-wide technology issues that have impacted our ability to prepare and publish some of our newspapers and online e-editions. We are working to correct the issue,” Lee Communications Director Tracy Rouch said Thursday morning.
Other messages on Lee websites described the situation as a server outage or a production issue. The outage has affected subscribers in 26 states.
On The Pantagraph Facebook page, Executive Editor Allison Petty tried to address reader frustration in a post saying she certainly understands and appreciates it.
“The journalists in our newsroom have continued to produce the local content that would appear in the paper, which we are distributing daily in these posts and a morning email, just like the e-edition. Please know that we are keenly aware of the frustration that some of you are expressing here, and everyone is doing everything within their power to fix this,” wrote Petty.
Petty said she is hopeful normal production will be able to resume soon. In addition to The Pantagraph, Lee operates Illinois newspapers in Decatur, Rock Island, Mattoon, and Charleston. It also owns the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Earnings
Lee held a first quarter earnings call [October to December 2024] with investors. The company reported operating revenue of $145 million and operating expenses of $149 million. The company had $446 million in outstanding debt, a reduction of $10 million from the previous year on its 9% fixed rate 25-year loan with BH Finance.
"As we look forward into the rest of the fiscal year, we expect digital revenue growth to accelerate achieving full-year guidance of growth between 7% and 10%. In addition, we have identified approximately $40 million of annualized cost reductions that we expect to have executed on by the end of the second quarter,” said Lee President and CEO Kevin Mowbray.
Mowbray said the company expects strong digital revenue growth combined with strong cost management to keep Lee on track to achieve its guidance. Last budget year, Lee reported an "inflection" point in digital revenue. More than half of company receipts come from digital-only subscribers.
