Sinclair buys Tribune Media for $3.9 billion

In the '90s, the LAT went after O.C., but OCR held on, topping out at about 330,000 while LAT reached 220,000.
LAT backed off.
Oddly, one of Genius Aaron Kushner's ideas was to hire LAT to deliver OCR ("Why have two trucks driving down the same streets delivering papers?"). One of the most ill-fated conglomeration plans ever. That arrangement ended up in court. Kushner had his wrist slapped by his rich buddies and ran out of dough. Don't know what happened in the courts.

 

Having grown up in the Chicago area in the '60s and '70s with the constant presences of WGN TV and Radio, the broadcast deal is almost as sad as the Chicago Tribune being owned by something named "tronc." Even in the pre-cable, pre-superstation, pre-Harry Caray era, WGN TV was a pioneer in covering local sports. My earliest memories are of WGN (and Jack Brickhouse) carrying every Cubs home game and White Sox home games on weekends. When the Sox made a disastrous decision to switch to a low-rent UHF station in 1968, WGN responded by airing all Cubs games, home and away -- helping create a generation of Cubs fans. WGN also showed all Blackhawks road games and carried the Bulls on and off in the early days of the franchise. There also was a first-rate lineup of syndicated programs (I've heard it was one of the few stations back then to carry Dick Van Dyke reruns) and old movies. The children's programs dominated the ratings in their time slots -- Bozo's Circus and the other shows were cheesy and campy, but that was part of their charm. Heck, Ray Rayner, the morning children's show host, even doubled as the original Ronald McDonald.

On the radio side, Brickhouse was pretty bad on Bears play-by-play. But Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau were top-notch on the Cubs, and Lloyd Pettit with the Blackhawks (he switched to TV on the road) belongs on any Mount Rushmore of hockey play-by-play men. The station also had some great non-sports hosts such as Wally Phillips and Eddie Schwartz.

Both the TV and radio stations certainly have gone through big changes and don't much resemble what they were back then. But at the very least, I wish they'd wound up with an outfit with a better reputation for quality than Sinclair.

 

tronc to buy Sun-Times?
Tronc moves to buy the Chicago Sun-Times as Department of Justice launches antitrust investigation

 

This is inevitable. The Justice Department might nix it. But even if Justice does Tronc is under no legal obligation to renew the printing contract< The next time the contract opens up Tronc just says no.

If the Trump Justice department does approve I think you will start to see a lot of mergers such as LANG and the LA Times and many more.

 

Golly, what a surprise ...

The corporate bosses of Sinclair Broadcast Group are claiming their acquisition of Chicago-based Tribune Media — creating a television juggernaut with 233 stations in 108 markets — isn’t just good for their company and their shareholders. They say it also will serve the public interest.

But the people who’ll benefit most from the deal may be executives of Tribune Media.

In a filing this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Sinclair disclosed plans for generous severance payments to top Tribune execs when they exit the company after the merger is completed. They include:

• Edward Lazarus, executive vice president and general counsel: $9,681,435
• Chandler Bigelow, executive vice president and chief financial officer: $9,248,157
• Larry Wert, president broadcast media: $7,760,566

Gary Weitman, senior vice president of corporate relations at Tribune Media, declined to comment on the disclosure.

http://www.robertfeder.com/2017/07/07/huge-payday-awaits-tribune-media-execs-sinclair-merger/

 

No surprise considering the history of various Tribune transactions. Dennis FitzSimons, who thoroughly loused up the old Tribune Co. in the years before the Zell takeover, walked away with something like $28.7 mil in 2007, and the trail of going-away gold has gotten a lot longer since then.

Add up the money that people have been paid to go away from various Tribune entities (including tronc) and the number almost certainly would be well into nine figures.

 

The hilarious thing about the death of newspapers is the money the top dogs have received during this decline. Nobody's making any money besides the CEOs at the top of the food chain. If you ever had to describe newspaper revenue flow today: It's the zillions of dollars going to the CEOs and the zillions of dollars made off the sale of prime downtown property where the old newspaper building sat when it was teeming full of reporters, photographers and sales people and pressmen. Hilarious.

 

Easiest job in the world. Every time I see the name Gary Weitman, it's followed by "declined to comment."

 

He's been "declining to comment" for about 10 years now. And, no doubt, paid quite well for it.

I'd imagine his marching orders, especially during the Zell years, have been something like, "Say anything of substance about the inner workings of the company and you'll be taking your next meal at the soup kitchen under the 'L' tracks."

 

Conservative news organizations opposing this deal:

Sinclair Deal Draws Unlikely Opponent: Conservative News Media

 

Story kind of buries the fact that they oppose it because it will be so big and take conservative ad dollars away from them. Mentioned that fact after all the bluster about the importance of "diversity of viewpoints" yada yada yada that none of them really give a shit about.

 

A look at JournalismJobs.com reveals dozens of listings at Sinclair properties. Either they're (a) expanding rapidly, or (b) they're unpleasant places to work and turnover is off the charts. My money is on (a).