Comments on: What’s Happening In Yellow Pages Land? Perhaps A Trifecta Merger Between AT&T, SuperMedia & Dex One

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:26:29 +0000

ALLTEL Publishing Corp. CONT. – Where might this “tiny” yet profitable operation be today if ALLTEL, Inc. hadn’t been systematically dismantled? I say “tiny” because that’s how corporate viewed & treated the publishing branch. APC was still on the upswing in the early 2000’s & I don’t believe it had peaked yet by mid-decade. Besides acquiring GTE/Verizon properties & resources beginning in 1993, corporate was purchasing other companies/interests, forming strategic partnerships, & aggressively expanding local access, long distance, cellular, bundled services/billing, call center, & IT/banking applications (the later heavily overseas). CenturyTel had doubled in size with the 1997 acquisition of Pacific Telecom, Inc. (PTI). ALLTEL, Inc. attempted a take-over of CenturyTel in 2001 but was defeated. In the years following its inception, ALLTEL Publishing was securing multi-year contracts & steadily building a reputation for eye-catching, interesting, quality directories that were a good ROI (especially for smaller, rural telcos since there was less market competition). Looking back on the many telcos & publishers that were big players, I can’t help but wonder (& maybe others have too) where APC might be in the pecking order today? ALLTEL/APC were trying to position themselves favorably among the likes of: Bell Atlantic first acquired NYNEX, then General Telephone & Electronics Corp. or GTE (& was renamed Verizon Communications Inc. after the GTE merger), Southern Bell/South Central Bell (formed BellSouth, then AT&T acquired BellSouth to form AT&T South & AT&T Southeast), Southwestern Bell Corp. renamed itself SBC Communications Inc. (then it purchased its former parent company AT&T Corp. & renamed itself AT&T Inc.), Ameritech was acquired by SBC Communications Inc. (which later became AT&T, Inc.), Century Telephone renamed itself CenturyTel, then renamed itself again to CenturyLink, US West was acquired by Qwest Communications & called Qwest Corp. (then it was acquired by CenturyLink), Pacific Bell (PacBell) was acquired by Pacific Telesis, then it was acquired by SBC Communications Inc. which ultimately became AT&T Inc. (so it operates as AT&T California), Sprint spun-off former United Telephone companies & Centel as Embarq (which was subsequently acquired by CenturyTel now CenturyLink), Sprint Directory Publishing (including Centel Directories & the Embarq name/logo) was acquired by R.H. Donnelley Corp. (now Dex One Corp.), Ameritech Publishing was acquired by SBC (subsequently it became AT&T Advertising Solutions’ The Real Yellow Pages). UPDATE: Cerberus Capital Management has agreed to buy a majority stake in AT&T’s directory business – it will own 53% of YP Holdings LLC by mid-2012. GTE Directories became Verizon Communications which became Idearc Media then finally SuperMedia (SuperPages), Yell (UK) purchased Yellowbook (US) then McLeodUSA then TransWestern Publishing, L.M. Berry was acquired by BellSouth, then BellSouth by AT&T, then AT&T by Local Insight Media with the former APC/Windstream directories in the mix (currently named The Berry Co. LLC after Local Insight Media Holdings Inc. emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection), Consolidated Communications, Qwest Communications sold off QwestDex directory services to R.H. Donnelley (later it became Dex Media), Ogden Directories, The Local Pages, etc. Of course there were/are many more telcos & publishers scattered around the country – I tried to list the larger ones while still keeping it balanced. The original purpose of all this commentary was to paint a picture of the climate & competition ALLTEL faced back then. As you read, things were pretty volatile & cutthroat. Maybe APC would be in the same boat taking on water with AT&T, SuperMedia, & Dex One, maybe not. Obviously APC wasn’t near the size of those three, and that may have worked to their advantage. I/we can only speculate about how healthy they would be if they were still around. AT&T (re: print directories) is in the process of climbing into the life raft, so I don’t see a three-way merger taking shape. Verizon already played the shell game with its investors & shareholders when it turned its ailing directory business into Idearc. A judge already decided they had motive & opportunity to deceive, and they did. RHD has exited bankruptcy as Dex One, but I’m not sure they’re prepared to walk the road that lies ahead. Same for Berry. I don’t have any data but Yellowbook seems the most prepared for the next few years. The lingering & painful question is how much of a role printed telephone books will play in advertising & information services in coming years. Sadly, traditional home phone service, print newspapers, & print phone books are steadily fading as internet & mobile technology drives the economy & feeds the sustained craze for the newest, sleek object you carry with you everywhere.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:25:57 +0000

ALLTEL Publishing Corp. (APC) in Hudson, OH was very successful producing small & medium-sized directories until the demise of ALLTEL. In 1993, ALLTEL acquired 320,000 lines & the directory business in Georgia from GTE. Directory conversions & production got underway in 1994. APC didn’t have its own Directory Management (DM), sales force, or printing plants like GTE, so they entered into a 10-yr. contract with GTE for those services. Years later, after GTE became Verizon, APC began using Quebecor World for print too because of steady growth. APC had its own Listing Management (LM) in Erie, PA. APC Marketing coordinated canvass activity for GTE/Verizon Sales. Relations between ALLTEL/APC & GTE/Verizon were often strained because there were so many people on both sides involved in the process. GTE/Verizon often tried to leave APC “flapping in the wind” on errors related to service order activity (or lack of), customer complaints, & adjustments. Keep in mind the fact that APC was using AMDOCS software because that’s what GTE used. Basically, APC inherited GTE’s operational struggles & shortcomings – they had to sit back & take it because GTE/Verizon had the size & more leverage in directories. As far as putting unique, quality books on the streets, APC got high marks. APC took a lot of the independent business away from L.M. Berry & Consolidated. Around 1999 or 2000 they were producing over 450 titles, which included the ALLTEL system books. They produced many books for Century Telephone (Monroe, LA) which later renamed itself CenturyTel (present-day CenturyLink) as well as numerous ones for TDS Telecom & independents in Alaska. ALLTEL/APC eventually started its own directory sales force, but that was short-lived. ALLTEL’s landline business was spun-off & merged with VALOR Communications to create Windstream in 2005/2006. Windstream then split off its directory publishing business (Windstream Yellow Pages) in 2007 to private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe & it was renamed Local Insight Yellow Pages. Then in 2009, Local Insight merged into The Berry Company. The final piece of what was once a $6.5+ billion corporation was ALLTEL Wireless – it was absorbed by the beast Verizon Wireless. I never did trust Joe Ford or his son Scott at HQ in Little Rock, AR! Ken Beach, former ALLTEL Publishing President, was a nice guy & great leader. I’ll always have fond memories of Faith Hill too!

By: Chris Silver Smith

Chris Silver Smith — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:46:33 +0000

Laura, I think they’ll likely try to sell or spin-off their Yellow Pages division — I just wrote up some opinions about this at:

http://www.nodalbits.com/bits/att-selling-off-yellow-pages-unit/

By: AT&T Selling Off Yellow Pages Unit? » Nodal Bits

AT&T Selling Off Yellow Pages Unit? » Nodal Bits — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:53:50 +0000

[...] last year it had seemed possible that they might have toyed with the idea of performing a massive three-way merger of yellow pages companies by acquiring both SuperMedia and Dex One. I’d heard some convincing rumors, noted their [...]

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:01:27 +0000

Chris, What are your thoughts of Randall Stephenson’s comments about AT&T’s possible sell off of their yellow page division? (Quote Referenced Below)

And then second, in this environment, we’ll accelerate our efforts to improve our overall growth profile. We’ll do that by looking at opportunities to either divest or restructure low-performing and nonstrategic assets. You’ve seen us do this in the last year or two with our Sterling Commerce sale and the restructure of our Telmex holdings. And you’ll see more of these actions over the next 24 months. -Randall Stephenson Jan 26, 2012

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 04:16:12 +0000

Hi there, any new news on the potential “trifecta”?

By: Paul Stone

Paul Stone — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:04:02 +0000

I agree with E. Wendell with one exception. The BellSouth way was actually the L.M. Berry way. Former Berry CEO Elmer Smith had risen to the top leadership role at BAPCO. Since their aquisition of L.M. Berry in the 80′s their culture was was linked to BellSouth. The BAPCO marketing department worked one on one with Berry Leadership and the “people first” culture of Berry spilled over. Since Smith’s retirement and the subsequent sale of Berry AT&T has done a great job of destroying all culture. In the end small business was the big loser. I left newspapers in the late 80′s when subscriptions were falling and ad rates were continuing to rise. I am done with directories for the same reason.

By: E. Wendell

E. Wendell — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:49:10 +0000

I have just been made aware of the “fodder” surrounding this YP industry decline…sell-off, merger and back to the AT&T Giant demonstring their market share dominance. I too think Chris is on target and anyone w/o a Ph.D or who is blind should see that the “print” market is dwendling fast! However with AT&T continuing to show dominance in a declining market is evdent of the sales force to which it owes its success. Now that being said, when AT&T bought back its BellSouth operations, it did so because BellSouth was doing “yellowpages” better than everyone else! They were at the top of their game and AT&T thought they could take it and do more. Besides not being completely ready for the new and “quickly” emerging interactive platforms, AT&T took the brightest and the best BellSouth had to offer and systematically and uncerimoniously destroyed the the “heart” of what made Yellowpages so great…its people! Its way of doing business! Its celebration of its “grunt workers” successes. AT&T known for its “bean counting” and lack of personality; its arrogance in thinking they could do it better than the BellSouth way, is more than partly to blame. No company is succeful in the long run if the people it hires are not happy working for the company. I guarantee you, if you poll those still around from the BellSouth days they will tell you that they are unhappy with the way AT&T handles the people and the business of yellowpages. Now known as AD Solutions; AT&T would do well to recognize that their product sales/delivery would have much better success if they went back to the BellSouth way and do it that way, for the right solution to hold on to and/or increase its market share before its to late. And yes, my e-mail ends in ATT.net. I’m a proud user of its products. AT&T and everyone else knows its a great prouduct. I also know much of its success is due to its people. AT&T doesn’t seem to recognize where their strength lie.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:15:58 +0000

I thin something big is going down with Dex One
Loaded all I can at this level in anticipation

By: AT&T Opens Mobile App Incubator In Texas » Nodal Bits

AT&T Opens Mobile App Incubator In Texas » Nodal Bits — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:35:31 +0000

[...] If you’re in a speculative mood, and we always are here at Nodal Bits, then you might also consider that this sets up their Dallas/Plano locations to increase their interactive development here, and with SuperMedia located in DFW as well, the facility could become part of the headquarters for a potential merged yellow pages company. [...]