Now up to bat, the Tampa Bay Times...

Yeah, and I actually enjoy TBT. I know going in it's not built around live news ... but it's built accordingly. Interesting, off-beat features and columns. Weird news. Not giant photos teasing to a website nobody can navigate, which is what my sports section has become.

As for Trib, I've heard the its finances were in much worse shape than the Times' business researchers believed. There were no revenue streams, no lucrative advertising deals. The deal was an absolute disaster. I've heard the Trib was missing payments and on the edge of folding, anyway, but the Times didn't discover any of that until after the deal. How much of that is true? No idea. But given what's transpired so quickly, sounds like the Times overpaid for a house with a cracked foundation sitting on top of a sink hole in the middle of a crack neighborhood. Which, knowing people on both sides of that rivalry, probably makes a few Trib people smile.

 

My moles at the Times tell me the paper has kept less than half of the Tribune subscribers it acquired after the purchase.

So, yeah, this is working out quite well for everyone.

 

Yeah, some of that is intentional. It's too expensive, apparently. They're trying to get rid of subscribers, like me. It's working.
Today's sports display had nothing to do with deadlines, however. They knew six months ago the Bucs were off but went with a display NFL tease to a random game. Fennelly had an interesting topic that screamed PHOTO, PLEASE, yet there was no photo. This thing has fallen off the cliff overnight, AJC style.

 

Hearing unconfirmed word that cuts are coming down today. Having a hard time believing that's happening on election day.

 

Layoff pizza?

 

Cuts have been coming every day for past 10 days. They're dragging it out, 1-2 a day usually, by department. I doubt anybody in any way related to the election is getting a call today. I've heard one reason they're doing it this way is so no big number jumps out in a headline. There are some blogs in Tampa Bay that take shots at the Times. Who knows. It's a complete mess.

As for buying Trib...they would have immediately saved whatever the purchase price was, so there is that. They're still trying to spin it as there would be even more cuts without buying the Trib, but I don't buy that. Tash's greed got the best of him, and a lot of other people are paying the price. Employees, subscribers. They can't fix this.

At this point, I'm just waiting on the announcement that they've been sold to McClatchy, Big G or Cox. Just a matter of time.

 

Depending on how many are being let go buildingwide, it might also be a convenient way to get around the WARN Act.

 

I think that the Times had a pretty good idea about the Trib problems. The Times paid for the subscriber list of the Tribune and a circulation monopoly. Which in the not to distant past was worth a lot of money.

 

Everybody has sources, I suppose. I heard from one of the recently departed that the Times wanted to sue the third party it hired to look into the Trib's finances because the result was catastrophically different from the expectation.
RH knows the Trib far better than I do, but I also heard from one of theirs that they wouldn't have lasted another 3 months.
My 2+2? This thing was a cluster brought on by greed and oversized egos. Wouldn't surprise me if Sherman were checking LinkedIn hourly.

 

I had not heard that figure, but it wouldn't surprise me. Robert Loring clearly was bleeding the paper dry intentionally, with his only endgame being one that would enrich him and his vulture colleagues and let him get out with a sale -- not a bankruptcy -- under his belt.

Personally, I hope he slips and falls to his death on the cold, hard marble flooring in his new South Tampa mansion. But I'm not bitter or anything about what he did to a local institution and some really good people.