Lee Enterprises is a local news and media company that publishes digital and print news across 72 mid-sized U.S. markets in 25 states. Lee's flagship publications include the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Omaha World-Herald, and Buffalo News. Lee serves two customer groups: readers who pay for access to local news, and local and regional businesses that advertise to reach those readers. Lee's revenue comes from three streams: digital subscriptions (~16% of FY25 revenue), digital advertising (~33%), and print subscriptions and advertising (~47%). Digital now represents 53% of total revenue, up from 21% in 2020. Lee's digital subscription business has grown to over 633,000 digital-only subscribers and carries ~70% gross margins, making it the key growth driver. Lee also operates Amplify, a digital marketing services agency that crossed $100M in revenue in FY25, selling search, social, video, and programmatic ad campaigns on behalf of over 20,000 local business clients. Print remains profitable but is in secular decline; Lee is actively cutting print costs to redirect cash toward digital growth. Lee's debt is held entirely by Berkshire Hathaway at a 9% fixed rate, with no financial covenants. Lee is targeting $450M in digital revenue by 2030, with goals of 1.2M digital subscribers and $250M+ in Amplify revenue, while also pursuing AI content distribution partnerships with Perplexity, ProRata, and AWS.
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