Tribune's Future Tack: TV-Paper Localism

Chicago investor Sam Zell said two weeks ago that if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't have taken the financially troubled Tribune Co. private in a highly leveraged deal in 2007. With newspaper and TV station revenue in freefall, he said, the numbers just don't add up anymore.

But Zell did it. Now, under protection of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Zell's management team is working hard to align revenues, costs and debt and demonstrate upside in a way that will appease the unhappy debt holders.

A key player on that team is Ed Wilson, president of Tribune Broadcasting (23 TV stations, WGN-AM Chicago and cable's WGN America) and chief revenue officer at all the company's properties, which include the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun. He reports to Randy Michaels, the former radio executive who sits at Zell's right hand as COO.

Wilson is well known to the top ranks of broadcasters, mostly as a purveyor of syndicated programming -- at his own company (MaXam Entertainment) and later CBS Enterprises and then NBC Enterprises. For the four years prior to joining Tribune in February 2008, he was president of the Fox Television Network.

At Tribune, Wilson has taken drastic moves to contain costs, most notably merging the Tribune CW affiliates in St. Louis (KPLR) and Denver (KWGN) with Fox affiliates there belonging to Local TV. (Under a unique setup, Michaels and Wilson not only manage the Tribune properties, but also the nine Local TV stations.)

On his watch, Tribune has also merged the operations of its newspaper (Sun-Sentinel) and TV station (WSFL) in South Florida and is in the process of doing the same with its paper (Hartford Courant) and stations (WTIC and WTXX) in Hartford, Conn.

But, as Wilson discusses in this interview with TVNewsCheck Editor Harry A. Jessell, at the same time Tribune is squeezing dollars out of its operations though whatever efficiencies it can find, it is expanding news and other local programming at TV stations where it makes sense in hopes of putting them -- and the company -- on a path to long-term growth.

An edited transcript:

How does the bankruptcy affect your ability to do business in Hollywood and among the tech vendors?

There's the fear of doing business with someone who's in bankruptcy. Ironically, our credit is really very good now. If you talk to the distributors, if you talk to others, we're paying our bills. The challenge for us -- and the challenge for anyone in bankruptcy -- is how do you create a business model going forward that can last for years to come. That's what bankruptcy is allowing us to do.

So what's your strategy on the broadcasting side for helping dig Tribune out of the financial mess that it's in today?

On the broadcast side it's all about being local and it's about being relevant to your local community whether it's through news, sports, local programming.

How is that being manifested?

We can focus on individual local markets. Look what we're trying to do in Los Angeles with KTLA. We're trying to make it the television station it used to be -- a local news station that mattered. We added a 4:30 morning news so we go from 4:30 until 10. We added a 1 p.m. news, we added a 6:30 news, we added a weekend 6:30 news. We're trying to do more news and trying to do it better.

What about local non-news programming there?

Sure. If you look at Los Angeles, you have to say it's the entertainment capital of the world. Shouldn't we be doing some entertainment programming? You'll hear us announce a few things in the next few months that will relate directly to that.

I know that you have just launched a morning news service in Miami where you combined your station [WSFL, CW] and your newspaper [The Sun-Sentinel].

Miami's a tough market. You've got a very successful Fox affiliate, you've got a great ABC station, you've got a good CBS and a good NBC. How do you become relevant there? We felt we would be more relevant and more local by combining our newspaper and our television station. So when is a newspaper the most relevant? When you wake up in the morning. We dropped the 10 o'clock news that we were buying from NBC and instead chose to go with four hours in the morning that we would produce ourselves from a set that is built there inside the building where we house our station and our newspaper.

And what's the plan for Hartford where you are also combining your TV [Fox affiliate WTIC and CW affiliate WTXX] and newspaper operations [The Hartford Courier]?

More news, better news, more content. And the ability to have the editors of the newspapers contribute on a daily basis to the television station's news I think is just a positive.