All our favorite whipping boys in one place
Posted on | March 16, 2007 | No Comments
Back on a Friday from a couple of days of R&R in Arizona. Wish it could have been more “r”… I ended up getting a head cold (first in more than a year), probably because flying home from China, spending 24 hours home and then going to the hot ‘Zona isn’t the brightest thing to do for your health. (Quick Cactus League aside: Giants look good this year but then they always look good this time of year).
So to business:
The Tribune Co. is flopping around like a fish on a dock. According to the Wall Street Journal it’s rethinking “part of its self-help plan.” Sarah Ellison writes:
The newspaper and television concern is still likely to press ahead with the so-called self-help restructuring, which likely will involve taking on debt to pay a dividend to shareholders, spinning off its TV-station group and selling the Chicago Cubs baseball team, these people said. But faced with continued declines in print advertising revenues, the company may opt to borrow less money and pay a smaller dividend than originally thought. Tribune’s newspapers include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Meanwhile, Sam Zell is hovering around with a late bid, but recent quarterly results may prompt all suitors to head for the hills. As Bob Hope once said, there are only six real jokes and the rest is timing. Check out the full story here (registration required).
Separately, Tribune is selling its southern Connecticut papers to Gannett for $73 million and girding for a legal battle with unions in same.
Buried in the pages of The Journal was the story that CBS has made up with YouTube to allow TV highlights on the popular site. Might have been a late breaker for WSJ on Thursday because it shudda been played higher given the Sumner Redstone/Viacom jihad against the ‘Tube. Venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky brings a little rationality to the discussion, though, by suggesting Viacom actually needs YouTube.
Let’s see… what else?
Newspaper advertising revenue continues to drop, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
But at least the meteor hasn’t hit yet.
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Related posts:
- Another Trib publisher quits
- Zell to Old Media: F*** You
- First step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem…
- Update at the Tribune
- L.A. Times loses another editor
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