Tribune Co. to cut staff by about 2% (400-500 layoffs - Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Los Angeles Times ^ | February 13, 2008 | Thomas S. Mulligan

[abb]

Tribune Co., struggling with declining revenue, today said it would cut staff by 400 to 500 people companywide, or around 2% of the Chicago-based media company's workforce. At the Los Angeles Times, 100 to 150 jobs will be eliminated, 40 to 50 in the newsroom, through a combination of attrition, voluntary buyouts and, if necessary, layoffs, Publisher David D. Hiller said in an interview this morning.

Tribune Chief Executive Sam Zell announced the news this morning in one of his frequent "Talk to Sam" e-mails to all employees. The job cuts are focused on the corporate staff and the company's nine newspapers, including, besides The Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday in New York, the Orlando Sentinel, the Baltimore Sun and the Hartford Courant.

The decision was reached during meetings Monday and Tuesday among senior executives at Tribune's Chicago headquarters, said Hiller, who was interviewed early this morning just before catching a flight back to Los Angeles from snowy Chicago.

For the moment, Tribune's broadcast division, consisting of KTLA-TV Channel 5 and nearly two dozen other stations around the country, will be spared. Fox TV veteran Ed Wilson, hired just last week to run the broadcast operation, will be given time to evaluate his business and make his own personnel decisions later, according to a Tribune executive familiar with the situation.

The job eliminations will come swiftly. Hiller said all the people affected would be out of the company by the end of March.

As in previous buyouts and layoffs at The Times, most departing employees will receive two weeks' pay per year of service, but this time there are two new elements. First, Hiller said that any buyouts next year would involve far smaller severance packages -- probably one week's pay per year of service.

snip

[abb]

[abb]

Wednesday Afternoon Good News!!!!

[abb]

[abb]

ping

[agere_contra]

Thank you. These stories unfailingly cheer me up.

[abb]

http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13128

Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 2/13/2008 11:46:55 AM
Title: Cuts at Chicago Tribune announced
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

From: [Chicago Tribune publisher] Smith, Scott C.
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 10:37 AM
Subject: Financial Performance, Staff Reductions and Growth Initiatives

Dear Colleagues,

Even with all the aggressive actions we have taken to improve our results, revenue trends continue to worsen due to the difficult economic conditions. Total revenue for Chicago Tribune Media Group was down 5% in period 1. Ad revenue was down double digits, a continuation of the trend late last year. First period operating cash flow was also down substantially more than the 8% decline for 2007. The near term outlook shows few signs of improvement.

To deliver the best possible 2008 financial performance and position us for growth when the economy improves, we need to further reduce operating expenses. As covered in a note today from Sam Zell, actions to improve cash flow trends, including staff reductions, will be taken across the publishing group and in the corporate office.

snip

[abb]

http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13129

Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 2/13/2008 12:48:13 PM
Title: Memo to Baltimore Sun employees
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

Memo to Baltimore Sun employees

Dear Fellow Employees,

2008 has been a year of great contrasts so far. Here at The Baltimore Sun, we’re focused on being the owners of our business, producing great journalism, improving our revenue performance and delivering targeted new products and services our customers want. We all came into this year with some cautious optimism about what we can accomplish in those areas, and I still believe we will achieve our goals.

Meanwhile, though, the economy is not cooperating. Just this week, we had a report that Baltimore-area home sales dropped 40% in January, an ongoing trend that has hit our Real Estate advertising revenue hard. Last week, Macy’s announced the elimination of 2,500 jobs, and chain store sales were weaker in January 2008 than they have been in decades – clear signs that our retail advertisers also are feeling the pinch. Every day, media-watching websites report another newspaper or magazine that has had to reduce its staff, including The Washington Post, which is also closing its College Park production plant. The economy may not yet be in a recession, but it’s clearly on the way, and in the news business, we are feeling it now.

snip

[abb]

http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13130

Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 2/13/2008 12:56:36 PM
Title: Hartford Courant aims to cut 45 positions
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

Memo to Hartford Courant employees

From: Carver, Steve
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 12:43 PM
To: HC-All Courant and Subsidiaries
Subject: Sam’s Message

Courant, NMM and ValuMail employees:

In his message to all employees today, Sam Zell outlined the challenge
that the company is facing due to a severe downturn in advertising
revenue. As a result cash flow in the Publishing Group is well behind
2007 and below projections for 2008.

The Hartford Courant’s advertising revenue is currently down 14% from
last year, losses are across the board with the greatest declines in our
national and classified businesses. Our Advertising department is doing
everything they can to turn this situation around. The sales compensation plan has been changed to a performance based plan. They
have just finished a sales training program for all our sellers that will help them compete better in this very tough marketplace. New Wheels and Motoring sections will be launched in March that will create more value for our automotive clients, and with the help of the audience
development team, new products are being developed to drive local sales and enhance local content for our readers and on-line users.

snip

[Dr. Scarpetta]

BTTT

[abb]

The Gravedancer is using the employees' own pension plan to pay for the severance packages!

Second, the cash to finance the buyouts will come from the overfunded portion of Tribune employees' cash-balance pension plan. Hiller said that Tribune officials have determined that the defined-benefit plan has about $300 million more than it needs to meet future obligations to retirees. Rather than leave that cash "just sitting there," Hiller said, Zell is making use of it to fund the buyouts and -- in a program he announced Tuesday -- to make a one-time, cash contribution of 2% of employees' salaries to a new cash-balance plan early this year. Zell said the money would help compensate workers for the annual profit-sharing contribution that Tribune traditionally had made to their pension accounts. Zell said that Tribune's former executives had made the decision to eliminate the profit-sharing contribution for 2007 but left it to him to convey the bad news.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Don’t rejoice too much. Much of the decline is because people don’t READ. Part of the decline is because people want short snippets of news, rather than in-depth coverage.
Look at this as an OPPORTUNITY for some rich conservative to START a decent newspaper that is FAIR.

[Milhous]

Zell said on Tuesday that through the third quarter of 2007, Tribune's cash flow had declined by 12% from a year earlier.

TRB employees need to bail out while extra cash still remains in their pension fund. As previously noted Zell's deal reportedly assumes at most a 0.9 decline in revenue. Unfortunately an unhealthy emotional attachment to Old Media may blind many employees who will continue to hope for the best and may vote for Obama to "change" their dire predicament. :(

[Landru]

"Don’t rejoice too much. Much of the decline is because people don’t READ. Part of the decline is because people want short snippets of news, rather than in-depth coverage."

Yup, but it's even worse than that when one considers where those losing jobs go? When the Soviet Union fell & Berlin Wall came crashing down, we rejoiced. We'd beaten the communists was the conventional wisdom when in fact the only thing enabling those of the free west to know where the overwhelming number of communists were was behind that wall. Go to 99% of the republic's universities --among many other places right here at home-- to see where the ideology went.

"Look at this as an OPPORTUNITY for some rich conservative to START a decent newspaper that is FAIR."

Fat chance.
Hangman and *who'll* sell 'em the rope and all that.

The republic wouldn't be dealing with a McCain or Hucklebee if that were true.
"Conservatism" has been slowly & surely *starved* nearly into nonexistence, the rags were the "point men" beginning the whole movement and while they're failing, they were expendable but certainly won't be the end.

No, time for the next wave.

...to step-up to the plate.

[samadams2000]

How many employees does it take to tell one big un American lie?? They could hundreds without anyone seeing a difference.