Tribune Plans Cuts in Pages, Staffers at Papers

Tribune Chairman Sam Zell detailed planned changes to the company's struggling newspaper division, including a reduction in the number of pages and staffers at its daily papers. The changes indicate Zell is following through quickly on pledges to overhaul the newspaper-and-television concern. Zell took the helm of the company after he led an $8.2 billion buyout in December. He has pledged to change attitudes and business operations at Tribune, but his task has been made more difficult by declines in newspaper advertising and by the company's $13 billion debt load stemming from the buyout. As part of Zell's corporate overhaul, Tribune plans in coming weeks to begin trimming the page counts at its newspapers to ensure that the amount of space devoted to news is roughly in line with the amount of space devoted to advertising, he revealed on a conference call with lenders. The move could pare about 500 pages, or 12.5%, from the weekly page total of Tribune's newspapers, excluding classifieds and other ad sections. The changes will result in "substantial savings," Randy Michaels, Tribune's chief operating officer, said on the conference call. The reductions in page count are part of a broader redesign of Tribune papers that involve the introduction of more photographs, statistics and news nuggets along with altered layouts. The redesign will start with the Orlando Sentinel this month and later extend to the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune titles like the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun.
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* Tribune says it can meet debt payments for year (LATimes)
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-tribune6-2008jun06,0,...
* The Incredible Shrinking Tribune
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/opening_bell_the_incredible_sh.php