NewsInc

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STAR TRIBUNE TO EXIT CHAPTER 11 BY THIS SEPTEMBER Minneapolis paper will have $100M in debt, new owners, publisher.
Should all go as planned, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis will emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy sometime in late September with $100 million in debt, new owners, a new board of directors and a new . . .

CLARITY ACQUIRES WEEKLY STANDARD MAG.
Denver's Clarity Media Group, the print affiliate of Anschutz Entertainment Group of Los Angeles, said on Wednesday that it had acquired the Weekly Standard magazine of Washington, D.C. from News Co . . .

AP TO LAUNCH NEW ON-LINE AD OFFERING.
While not the first time that The Associated Press has entered the advertising business (who can forget AP AdSEND?), the news cooperative said at a media event last Thursday that in July it will beg . . .

BOSTON GUILD SETS VOTE, NO CONTRACT YET.
Despite there being no agreement with the Boston Globe, The Newspaper Guild/CWA unit at the paper last week set a date to vote on one nonetheless. The two sides began meeting last week in the wake o . . .

BRIEFS.
*ABC, Chicago paper test new report: The Audit Bureau of Circulations said on Friday that it had launched a new report for newspapers, called the Consolidated Media Report, with the publication of o . . .

PERSONS.
Executive suite: At Freedom Communications Inc. of Irvine, Calif., Burl Osborne has been named interim chief executive; he remains a member of Freedom's board, which he joined as in independent dire . . .

GLOBE, GUILD NEGOTIATE; BUYERS LINE UP IN BOSTON Goldman Sachs retained; three groups emerge as potential bidders.
As executives from the Boston Globe and its largest union, The Newspaper Guild/CWA, talked into the night, the paper's owner continued apace to find a buyer for the troubled operation, while new own . . .

SUN-TIMES COURT SECRECY REQUEST DENIED.
A request by lawyers for The Sun-Times Media Group of Chicago to close the bankruptcy court during testimony about what the company thinks it can garner from its sale -- and how $1.8 million in bonu . . .

READERS REALLY LIKE ELECTRONIC EDITIONS.
With momentum on electronic editions building seemingly every day -- the new publisher of USA Today said last week the nation's largest daily would launch a new e-edition in August -- a new survey s . . .

Q1 AD SPENDING OFF 14%, PAPERS DIP 25-1/2%.
Overall first-quarter ad spending dropped 14.2 percent when compared to the same period last year, researchers said last week, with newspaper ad revenue down 25-1/2 percent for the period. TNS Med . . .

BRIEFS.
*Ottaway out of here: Dow Jones & Co., a division of the media behemoth News Corp., said last week that it was renaming its community newspaper group Dow Jones Local Media Group Inc. Even before bei . . .

PERSONS.
Executive suite: At Gannett Co. Inc. of McLean, Va., Craig Dubow, the company's chairman, chief executive and president, is taking a four-month leave of absence, following successful back surgery to . . .

BLETHEN MAINE PAPERS INCH CLOSER TO SALE Connor, equity firm, tell 22 non-union workers they won't be needed.
Despite the economic downturn and unprecedented advertising recession, newspaper mergers and acquisitions continued apace in recent days, with the deal to sell Blethen Maine Newspapers inching forwa . . .

BOSTON GUILD REJECTS GLOBE CONCESSIONS.
Within minutes of a rejection of a plan to cut $10 million in wages and benefits at its largest union, Boston Globe management tonight declared that the two sides to be at an impasse and that it wou . . .

McCLATCHY BACK IN NYSE'S GOOD GRACES.
Newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. said last week that it had received notification from the New York Stock Exchange that its finances are once again in compliance with the rules of the exchange. . . .

Q1 NEWSPAPER AD REVENUE OFF 28%.
When the Internet Ad Bureau reports a year-over-year decline in ad revenue for the hottest sector in the business, you know that traditional media are going to be in the dumper: last week the Newspa . . .

BRIEFS.
*Catalyst disputes taxes: Canadian newsprint maker Catalyst Paper Corp. said last week that it was petitioning the highest court in British Columbia regarding the legality of property taxes that hav . . .

PERSONS.
Executive suite: At Lee Enterprises Inc. of Davenport, Iowa, Patricia Williamson has been named corporate tax director; previously, she was global tax director for The NutraSweet Co. of Augusta, Ga. . . .

COX SELLS 2 SMALL TEXAS DAILIES, COUPON BUSINESS Atlanta firm still seeking buyer for Austin, Colorado, N.C. newspapers.
Finally gaining some traction in its attempt to skew its business away from print advertising, Cox Enterprises on Thursday said it had found a buyer for two of its Texas dailies. Earlier in the week . . .

PUBLISHERS MEET TO TALK PAID CONTENT.
Described by some as a "discrete" meeting (by others as "hush-hush" or "quiet"), about two dozen top newspaper executives met last Thursday in a hotel conference room near Chicago's O'Hare Airport t . . .

ACN, MORRIS SEEK WAYS OUT OF TROUBLE.
Two troubled newspaper publishing companies in recent days have pushed back decision-making dates regarding their futures. American Community Newspapers Inc. of Dallas and Morris Publishing Group LL . . .

UNIONIZED WORKERS VOTE ON CUTS.
Workers at the Boston Globe and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have voted or soon will vote on a variety of cutbacks, including reductions in wages and hours. Mailers and pressmen in Boston last week . . .

BRIEFS.
*Arizona lawman drops Tucson suit: The attorney general's office in Arizona said last Wednesday that it was withdrawing its antitrust lawsuit against Gannett Co. Inc. and Lee Enterprises Inc. regard . . .

PERSONS.
Executive suite: At Playboy Enterprises Inc. of Chicago, Scott Flanders was today named chief executive; previously, he had been president and chief executive of Freedom Communications Inc. of Irvin . . .

McCLATCHY TO BUY BACK $1.2B IN DEBT WITH CASH, NEW NOTES Banks approve $60M payments; company's stock price surges 60%.
Garnering applause from shareholders and jeers from credit-rating agencies, The McClatchy Co. on Thursday offered to buy back almost $1.2 billion of its debt at between 18 cents and 33 cents on the . . .

HALF OF INTERNET USERS VISIT FREE AD SITES.
While the seismic shift away from print classified advertising has been well understood, it was brought into stark relief last week when the Pew Research Center released a report outlining that the . . .

GOOGLE NOT IN MARKET FOR A NEWSPAPER.
Search-engine giant Google Inc. is still not interested in crossing the divide between being a technology company and a content provider, an interview with the company's chief executive, Eric Schmid . . .

TUCSON PAPER TO GO ON AS WEB SITE.
A federal judge refused to grant the Arizona state attorney general a temporary restraining order that would have kept the Tucson Citizen publishing on Tuesday, saying that the state had failed to s . . .

BRIEFS.
*Minneapolis paper sues Teamsters: With agreements with just a few unions to go, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis last week filed suit against Teamsters Local 638, trying to end its contract with its . . .

PERSONS.
Executive suite: At Tribune Co. of Chicago, a series of promotions. Steve Gable has been named executive vice president; previously, he was senior vice president, a job he took last year, and remain . . .

TUCSON CITIZEN SHUTTERED; COURT ASKED TO REOPEN IT Arizona attorney general wants Lee, Gannett to still print 17k daily.
While Gannett Co. Inc. says that Saturday's printed edition of its Tucson Citizen was the paper's last, the attorney general of Arizona argued in federal court today that the closure of the paper wa . . .

NEW ON-LINE NEWSPAPER MODELS EXPLORED.
Newspaper publishers last week continued to thrash around attempting to find methods to generate more revenue off their web site offerings, with two major ones -- The New York Times Co. and MediaNew . . .

E-EDITIONS NOW A STAKE IN CIRCULATION.
If there was a silver lining in last month's release of daily newspaper circulation -- which was down about seven percent, comparing the six months ending March 31, 2009 to the year previous -- it w . . .

GEFFEN WILLING TO BUY NEW YORK TIMES CO.
Entertainment mogul David Geffen waits in the wings to buy The New York Times Co. and its iconic flagship, according to numerous reports last week. Apparently Geffen -- who made billions in record . . .

BRIEFS.
*McClatchy papers charge for TV book: Though the decisions were made locally, four McClatchy newspapers are now charging subscribers an extra 25 cents per week to receive the TV-listings section in . . .

PERSONS.
Publishers: At the San Diego Union-Tribune, Edward Moss has been named president and publisher; previously, he was president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (L.A. Daily News, . . .

NEWSPAPER STOCK PRICES SOAR: LEE ROCKETS UP 242% First quarter results still come in: average ad rev decline is 28-1/4%.(Statist
With only the three bankrupt publicly owned newspaper companies left to report, the industry average decline in first-quarter ad revenue met the mean, now standing at 28-1/4 percent. The biggest dec . . .

KINDLE, 'MICROPAYMENTS' STIR PAY DEBATE.
Momentum to begin charging on-line users for daily newspaper content increased in recent days, with Amazon.com releasing a new, larger electronic tablet that will be marketed by three of the nation' . . .

NEWSPRINT MAKERS RIDING OUT RECESSION.(Catalyst Paper Corp.)(Financial report)
As AbitibiBowater Inc. went about its bankruptcy process last week, its main publicly traded North American competitor, Catalyst Paper Corp., released its first quarter earnings, with results marked . . .

BRIEFS.(Seabay Media)
*Swedes sell U.S. Metros: The free Metro tabloid commuter dailies in New York City and Philadelphia -- and the piece of Boston's Metro not owned by The New York Times Co.'s Boston Globe -- were sold . . .

PERSONS.(briefs)(appointment by Clanton Advertiser)
Executive suite: At Forum Communications Co. of Fargo, N.D., four promotions. Paul Amundson has been named vice president of interactive. A 22-year veteran of the company, Amundson started Fargo's i . . .

Q1 AD REVS DOWN AVERAGE 29.8%; MEAN DROP IS 28-1/2% A swing from 25% to 34%, with Belo, NY Times and Scripps in middle.
Advertising revenue at the publicly traded newspaper companies has declined an average of 29.8 percent when comparing the first quarter of this year to the same period last year. Of the eight media . . .

ANC, COLUMBIAN EACH FILE CHAPTER 11.
Two more publishing companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, each with a unique circumstances, but both citing the unprecedented changes in the newspaper business and the rece . . .

POTENTIAL BUYER STEPS UP FOR SUN-TIMES.
Despite a weekend comment by wizard financier Warren Buffett that he wouldn't make any new investments in the newspaper business, a Chicago businessman is apparently interested in acquiring Sun-Time . . .

AMAZON TO RELEASE LARGE-SCREEN KINDLE?
Technology buffs were abuzz today as Amazon Inc. -- the bookseller that last year branched out into building and selling electronic reading devices called Kindle -- announced the unveiling of a new . . .

DENVER, S.F., CUT BACK ON DISTRIBUTION.
Metropolitan newspapers continued to cut back on unprofitable circulation last week, as reports indicated that both the Denver Post and San Francisco Chronicle were reigning in their circulation are . . .

BRIEFS.
*NYT Co. won't shutter Boston: After carving out agreements with six of its seven Boston Globe unions, The New York Times Co. said today it won't file warning notices with various governmental agenc . . .

PERSONS.
Executive suite: At the newly formed Midwest Division of Sandusky Newspapers (Ohio's Norwalk Reflector, Michigan's Grand Haven Tribune), Doug Phares has been named president; he remains publisher of . . .

DAILY CIRC DOWN 6.8%, SUNDAY DOWN 5.4%, ON-LINE UP 10-1/2% Newspaper web site usage report shows surge in unique visitors.
With the release today of the audited daily newspaper circulation for the six months ending March 31 -- and an overall decline of 6.8 percent when compared to the same period last year -- there are . . .

GUILD AGREES TO MINNEAPOLIS CUTS.(The Newspaper Guild)(Star Tribune Co.)
Management at the Star Tribune of Minneapolis last week hammered out a deal with the paper's newsroom union, which called it "painful and distasteful," putting the paper one step closer to emerging . . .