Publishers

ViacomCBS reported second quarter earnings on Thursday morning, with publisher Simon & Schuster recording sales of $200 million for the period, down 8 percent from $218 million a year ago. But  expenses were also lower so profits (OIBDA) rose, to $38 million, up from $35 million a year ago. The company said the 8 percent decline in the topline was “primarily driven by lower print book sales as a result of the impact of COVID-19, partially offset by growth in sales of electronic and digital audiobooks.” (That’s roughly in line with the 10 percent decline in the quarter reported this […]

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported earnings for the second quarter ending June 30. At HMH Books & Media, net sales were $35.2 million, down from $39.1 million. The 10 percent decline was “primarily due to lower net sales of both adult and young reader’s categories due to the closure of bookstores during the COVID-19 crisis and the corresponding delay in releases of new frontlist titles.” The net loss of $(1.8) million was an improvement from the loss of $(5.4) million last year’s Q2, largely due to improved margins and decreased selling and administration expense, thanks to “lower discretionary spending and labor […]

Lagardere reported second quarter and half-year 2020 results on Thursday afternoon. Second quarter publishing sales were €514 million, down €70 million from a year ago (a 12 percent decline), with trends pointing up sharply in June. Month by month, the company said sales fell 39 percent in April (at €109 million); were 22 percent lower in May (€162 million); and then gained 21 percent in June (€243 million), “lifted by a large number of best-sellers in France and abroad.” For the first half of the year, that put Lagardere Publishing at €971 million, down €73 million, or 7 percent, from […]

At Quarto, for the first six months of 2020, sales fell $9.5 million to $46.9 million, down 17 percent from the same period a year ago. The adjusted operating loss doubled, to $(1.8) million, though the company’s pre-tax loss was about even, given lower interest costs following their recapitalization in January. Chief executive C.K. Lau said in the release, “The drop in revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led us to initiate a number of cost management initiatives to tightly manage our cash flow.” They “expect the COVID-19 situation to continue to evolve and this prolonged uncertainty will create […]

Pearson released results for the six-months ending June 30 on Friday morning, with COVID-related impact weighing heavily on their sales. The company reported sales of £1.49 billion, down from £1.83 billion last year, a decline of 19 percent largely due to test center and school closures affecting its global assessment and international segments. North American courseware, including US higher ed, declined 14 percent, though they attributed it to the longer-term collapse in sales and conversion to lower-priced digital products (“due to the continuation of trends seen in 2019”), citing only “a modest impact from the closure of campus-based bookstores.” Adjusted […]

Scholastic reported fourth quarter and full-year results for the period ending May 31 on Thursday afternoon. As expected, school closures due to coronavirus weighed heavily on their performance for the quarter, with overall sales of $284 million, down 40 percent compared to $471 million last year. Trade sales, however, surged to $80.4 million from $55.4 million last year — led by the big release of Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, plus continuing sales for Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man books, and Raina Telgemeier’s Guts, but also boosted in general by the early lockdown surge in educational books for […]