Tribune to sell Newsday?

MURDOCH MAKES A PLAY FOR NEWSDAY
Rupert Murdoch may not be done expanding his newspaper empire. The News Corp. chairman, who’s still digesting Dow Jones & Co., is now believed to have set his sights on Newsday. According to one newspaper industry insider, the company has made a bid for Tribune Co.’s Long Island paper. Newsday also owns am New York, a daily tabloid handed out free in New York City. Talk of the bid has surfaced at the same time that Tribune’s new Chief Executive Sam Zell has said that an advertising downturn has forced him to consider selling off company assets. Additionally, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its corporate credit rating. Murdoch has long had an interest in Newsday. A year ago, around the time that Tribune was exploring a sale of the entire company, he tried to establish a joint operating agreement between the Tribune paper and News Corp.’s New York Post. He told analysts and others that the agreement would create “a very, very powerful combination for advertisers” and turn the money-losing Post into a viable business “in five minutes."
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/FREE/54...
* Three New York Moguls in Talks to Buy Newsday
Add Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the real estate developer and publisher who owns The Daily News, and James L. Dolan, whose family controls Cablevision, the cable television operator to the list of possible buyers of Newsday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/business/media/21paper.html?ref=todays...
* Newsday drawing looks from 3 buyers
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-rosenthal-mar21,1,307200....
* Tribune Considers Sale of Newsday; Cablevision Is a Potential Bidder
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120605271913453073.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
* Rivals Interested in Newsday
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR200803...
* Tribune said to be in talks to sell Newsday
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-tribune21mar21,1,2217...