Hearst Corp., the parent company of this television station, generated near-record results in 2023 despite daunting conditions for the media industry, CEO Steven R. Swartz said Wednesday. “Thanks to your extraordinary efforts last year, we fulfilled our mission, enriching the lives of those we serve with our journalism, high-value information and software and entertainment,” he wrote in his annual letter to Hearst employees. “And despite numerous headwinds, we achieved our second-best year ever judged by our principal measure of profitability, falling short by 2% of the record results of 2022.” The privately held company headquartered in New York did not release figures on its overall performance. But Swartz laid out how a diversified portfolio and “rock solid” balance sheet helped the company remain profitable while making acquisitions, developing new products and planning for continued growth in 2024. The company’s consumer media sectors – Hearst Newspapers, Hearst Magazines and Hearst Television – saw profit declines in 2023, Swartz explained, as a result of a “sluggish” digital advertising environment, continued television cord-cutting among consumers and the drop in television advertising typically seen in non-election years. However, Hearst’s business media group, which includes business-to-business data sources and software platforms such as Hearst Health’s Homecare Homebase, focused on streamlining operations for home health and hospice agencies, saw profits rise. In particular, profits in the transportation group grew by a double-digit rate thanks to the performance of rapidly growing companies such as FlightBridge, whose software platform helps private flight crews and passengers arrange hotel rooms, rental cars and other services. Fitch Group, Hearst’s bond-rating agency, returned to revenue and profit growth in 2023 after turmoil in global bond markets stymied its performance in 2022. The company’s balance sheet remains “rock solid,” Swartz wrote, with no net debt and cash reserves that proved to be an important source of profit in 2023, thanks to higher interest rates. Over the course of 2023, he continued, Hearst invested more than $100 million in new product development and nearly $300 million in building and rebuilding software platforms, upgrading facilities and other capital investments. Employees who had been at the company for at least six months received bonuses. The company also made 45 venture capital investments and a number of “bolt-on” investments. Fitch acquired Bixby Research and Analytics, a fixed-income data company. Hearst Television acquired WBBH-TV, an NBC affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla. Hearst Forests added an additional 20,000 acres of California timberland to its existing holdings of 62,000 acres. Hearst Newspapers acquired two outlets in Connecticut, the Journal Inquirer in Manchester and RJ Media Group in Meriden, as well as the puzzle and games company Puzzmo.Swartz expressed optimism about Hearst’s performance in 2024, despite challenges ahead including geopolitical uncertainty, the potential for interest rate increases to slow the global economy and ongoing technological disruption. “We believe most of our businesses have a very good chance to grow in 2024 and we will give them all the support they need to do so,” Swartz wrote.Erica Grieder is a business reporter for the Houston Chronicle.She joined the Houston Chronicle, as a metro columnist, in 2017. Prior to that she spent ten years based in Austin, reporting on politics and economics, as the southwest correspondent for The Economist, from 2007-2012, then as a senior editor at Texas Monthly, from 2012-2016. In 2013, she published her first book, “Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas.” An Air Force brat, Erica thinks of San Antonio as home. She is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’s Emerging Leaders Council, and holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs and Columbia University, where she majored in philosophy.
NEW YORK —
Hearst Corp., the parent company of this television station, generated near-record results in 2023 despite daunting conditions for the media industry, CEO Steven R. Swartz said Wednesday.
“Thanks to your extraordinary efforts last year, we fulfilled our mission, enriching the lives of those we serve with our journalism, high-value information and software and entertainment,” he wrote in his annual letter to Hearst employees. “And despite numerous headwinds, we achieved our second-best year ever judged by our principal measure of profitability, falling short by 2% of the record results of 2022.”
The privately held company headquartered in New York did not release figures on its overall performance. But Swartz laid out how a diversified portfolio and “rock solid” balance sheet helped the company remain profitable while making acquisitions, developing new products and planning for continued growth in 2024.
The company’s consumer media sectors – Hearst Newspapers, Hearst Magazines and Hearst Television – saw profit declines in 2023, Swartz explained, as a result of a “sluggish” digital advertising environment, continued television cord-cutting among consumers and the drop in television advertising typically seen in non-election years.
However, Hearst’s business media group, which includes business-to-business data sources and software platforms such as Hearst Health’s Homecare Homebase, focused on streamlining operations for home health and hospice agencies, saw profits rise. In particular, profits in the transportation group grew by a double-digit rate thanks to the performance of rapidly growing companies such as FlightBridge, whose software platform helps private flight crews and passengers arrange hotel rooms, rental cars and other services. Fitch Group, Hearst’s bond-rating agency, returned to revenue and profit growth in 2023 after turmoil in global bond markets stymied its performance in 2022.
The company’s balance sheet remains “rock solid,” Swartz wrote, with no net debt and cash reserves that proved to be an important source of profit in 2023, thanks to higher interest rates. Over the course of 2023, he continued, Hearst invested more than $100 million in new product development and nearly $300 million in building and rebuilding software platforms, upgrading facilities and other capital investments. Employees who had been at the company for at least six months received bonuses.
The company also made 45 venture capital investments and a number of “bolt-on” investments. Fitch acquired Bixby Research and Analytics, a fixed-income data company. Hearst Television acquired WBBH-TV, an NBC affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla. Hearst Forests added an additional 20,000 acres of California timberland to its existing holdings of 62,000 acres. Hearst Newspapers acquired two outlets in Connecticut, the Journal Inquirer in Manchester and RJ Media Group in Meriden, as well as the puzzle and games company Puzzmo.
Swartz expressed optimism about Hearst’s performance in 2024, despite challenges ahead including geopolitical uncertainty, the potential for interest rate increases to slow the global economy and ongoing technological disruption.
“We believe most of our businesses have a very good chance to grow in 2024 and we will give them all the support they need to do so,” Swartz wrote.
Erica Grieder is a business reporter for the Houston Chronicle.
She joined the Houston Chronicle, as a metro columnist, in 2017. Prior to that she spent ten years based in Austin, reporting on politics and economics, as the southwest correspondent for The Economist, from 2007-2012, then as a senior editor at Texas Monthly, from 2012-2016. In 2013, she published her first book, “Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas.” An Air Force brat, Erica thinks of San Antonio as home. She is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’s Emerging Leaders Council, and holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs and Columbia University, where she majored in philosophy.
