Posted on 12/08/2008 6:01:50 PM PST by jessduntno
Tribune group files for debtor protection
Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, is seeking bankruptcy court protection from creditors amid tumbling advertising.
The move comes less than a year after Sam Zell took it private.
The 161-year-old newspaper and broadcast company was laboring under $12.9 billion in debt, according to Monday's Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. That load and the economic crisis led to the filing, Zell said in a statement.
“Factors beyond our control have created a perfect storm,” said Zell, the company's chief executive officer.
Zell, 67, has cut jobs, sold assets including Long Island's Newsday and put the Chicago Cubs baseball team up for sale. At the same time, U.S. newspaper industry ad sales plunged at accelerating rates, dropping 18 percent in the third quarter.
The Chicago Cubs and their Wrigley Field ballpark aren't included in the bankruptcy. The sale process for the team and its timetable for completion are unchanged, the Cubs said in a statement, without providing further details.
Tribune, which put into bankruptcy more than 100 affiliates, listed assets of $7.6 billion in court documents. The publisher said it has enough cash to stay in business while reorganizing.
“We're doing what's right for the business to save the business,” Zell said Monday. “Clearly we have to address the cost of distribution, paper and issues of consolidation.”
A 15 percent drop in ad sales industrywide during the first half of the year forced Zell to accelerate what was intended to be a 2010 business plan and redesign of Tribune's newspapers.
Tribune, which also publishes the Baltimore Sun, the (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) Sun Sentinel, the Hartford Courant, the (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call and the (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press, last month posted a third-quarter net loss of $121.6 million as newspaper ad revenue slumped 19 percent. The company's broadcasting group operates 23 television stations, including WGN America station on national cable.
memo to detroit: grow a pair and get take a hint.
Gee, did it ever dawn on these so called genuises, that they’d probably sell a whole lot more papers if they didn’t alienate half the potential buyers before they finish the front page with their biased “reporting”?
I don’t want the news slanted one way or the other, Just report the news and report it fairly.
The Chicago Tribune is actually not that bad. Certainly not compared with the L.A. Times (which is owened by the same company) or certainly the Chicago Sun Times which is like Obama’s personal Year Book.
I guess those plans are now put on permanent hold. But I wonder, if the plan had gone through would they have forced a liberal agenda on those conservative newspapers?
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