Projo melting away? ..Sheldon ,Chafee could buy the whole thing

       Newspaper companies are changing hands left and right these days at prices well below what they traded for 10 years ago. The Boston Globe was sold for $ 70,000,000 to John Henry after being purchased for over $1 Billion a decade back. Jeff Bezos ,of Amazon fame, purchased the venerable Washington Post for  $250 million dollars. So naturally it got me to thinking about the plight of the Providence Journal which is quite literally the  Ocean States paper as well as Providence's paper.
      The answer is not much. I used available public information and back of the envelope metrics that are used in the investment banking arena to produce the following table.

PROJO Value July 2013
Metrics	recent multiples	Projo data	Valuation
Ebitda	3.5	$3,675,000	$12,862,500
Per Subscriber	$294	78000	$22,932,000
Revenues	0.32	$85,000,000	$27,200,000
	Using Boston Globe Multiples
Ebitda	4.2	$3,675,000	$15,435,000
Per Subscriber	$285	78000	$22,230,000
Revenues	0.21	$85,000,000	$17,850,000

     So my back of the envelope calculation values the Newspaper at somewhere around $20 million dollars which is a very far cry from the implied $500 million price tag in 1997. Additionally I haven't been able to reconcile the pension obligations a new owner would have to take on or added the real estate value of the Main Building in Providence (approx 8 million) or the remaining parking lots they haven't sold yet ($5-10 million).

         then

                    Projo 1997 value $500 million 

      NOW !

                  Projo 2013 Value $ 20 million

maybe Taylor swift wants it?