Two high-yield media stocks to buy

Article Excerpt

Advertisers continue to shift to online ads and away from printed flyers and newspapers. That’s hurting revenue at Transcontinental (below) and Torstar (see box). But both are industry leaders and are doing a good job of controlling costs. That will let them maintain their current dividend rates. TRANSCONTINENTAL INC. $16 (Toronto symbol TCL.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 78.0 million; Market cap: $1.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. tctranscontinental.com) is Canada’s leading printer of flyers, magazines, newspapers and books. It also publishes magazines and newspapers. The company recently agreed to sell its consumer magazine division to TVA Group (Toronto symbol TVA.B). This business publishes 15 English- and French-language magazines, including Elle Canada, Canadian Living and The Hockey News. As part of the deal, Transcontinental will keep printing these magazines, as well as other TVA publications, to the end of June 2022. Selling these magazines will let the company focus on its smaller…