justin2kx 229 Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 More in this article: http://www.tvnewscheck.com/link/?id=34721 (subscription needed) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abric 157 Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Here it is from the Chicago Sun-Times. http://www.suntimes.com/business/1715945,CST-NWS-zell14.article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detroiter313 178 Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 It's about that time coming, looks like Tribune needs a new management and new CEO to lift the company out of its "unneccessary and disasterous predicament". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SterlingNorth 33 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Sam Zell had no business being in Tribune. Who knows why he thought he could flip newspapers like he could real-estate. The irony is he bought newspapers right at the time where it became impossible to flip anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevieboy247 42 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 I agree. Mr. Zell is not a good businessman at all. He didn't even deserve to have any involvement with Tribune in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyewitness_news 5 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Good riddance! Mr. Zell drove the Tribune stations down with him, and as a result, ALL the CW affiliates are no longer being associated with the CW moniker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMA 135 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Dropping the CW monikers are probably the only good thing he did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mre29 1343 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Dropping the CW monikers are probably the only good thing he did. That and the improved websites, though I wouldn't know how involved he was in that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A3N 996 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Well, I have to give him credit for snagging up the FOX affiliation in San Diego. Some may not like Zell, others like him and some feel indifferent about him. The only positives about Zell's tenure whether he was involved or not was to pump in some money to the smaller operations that Tribune has. They re-started a news department here in San Diego, and you have to give Tribune props for investing in equipment (HD, cameras, etc) and adding more newscasts . The problem with Zell was that he was too ambitious and like someone else mentioned, it was a bad time to do so. He should have made some smaller more realistic goals and then over time start to mold the product into what the company's view was. Unfortunately the newspaper side of Tribune is what's dragging down the company, and Zell just couldn't realistically change the newspapers into what he wanted. Let's see what happens in the next few months, there are some really good pieces of property that Tribune owns (i.e. KTLA, WPIX, WGN). Let's hope that the banks/creditors don't screw up the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Zell did good with the TV side of the company. I like the fact that they really put some effort into redoing the imaging of the stations - I don't know if that was a Zell thing or a Randy Michaels/Lee Abrams thing. (My guess is the latter; WGN's eye logo had to be a Michaels project but I can see Abrams being involved in re-establishing the unique identities.) Zell simply tried to expand the company too fast too soon in the worst environment to do it in. My hope is that whoever takes over the company gets the debt load down but keeps the sort of off-kilter feel Zell brought to the table. I'd love to see WPHL get the local identity treatment, though I imagine the contract's stricter with Fox than it is CW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjohnson 15 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Best thing he did was to kill the CW branding in the Tribune station group. His final act should be divorcing the group from the CW. That said, he's been a thorough failure as the leader of Tribune. The company is creaking under debt, and the newspapers are a mess. I also feel that the over-allocated company resources in the top 3 markets, and largely ignored stations in lower markets. The newspaper part of the company is in a mess that it didn't need to be in. Hulkie's assessment above mine pretty much sums it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tw-804 190 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Best thing he did was to kill the CW branding in the Tribune station group. Well, I still say Tribune shoulda left the brandings like they were before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMA 135 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Why? What's so great about "CW11" or "CW20", with the same fonts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StudioTech 13 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Why? What's so great about "CW11" or "CW20", with the same fonts? Exactly. The trend seems to be moving away from network branding. In the NYC market, WNBC went from being 'NBC 4' back to '4 New York'. WABC went back to referring to itself as Channel 7, although they still do sprinkle in ABC 7 sometimes. WPIX dumping the CW11 branding, referring to themselves now as 'PIX' and going back to the Circle 11 logo was a good move IMO. WGN was never branded as 'CW9' in Chicago. and KTLA was never branded as 'CW5'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SterlingNorth 33 Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 Zell did good with the TV side of the company. I like the fact that they really put some effort into redoing the imaging of the stations - I don't know if that was a Zell thing or a Randy Michaels/Lee Abrams thing. (My guess is the latter; WGN's eye logo had to be a Michaels project but I can see Abrams being involved in re-establishing the unique identities.) Zell simply tried to expand the company too fast too soon in the worst environment to do it in. My hope is that whoever takes over the company gets the debt load down but keeps the sort of off-kilter feel Zell brought to the table. I'd love to see WPHL get the local identity treatment, though I imagine the contract's stricter with Fox than it is CW. I can't see how, given that two MyNetwork stations are branded as OK 43, and PDX-TV ( KAUT, and KPDX respectively), unless those two (and former affiliate KJZZ) got waivers. I get the CW debranding was more of an ultimatum against the CW. (MyNetworkTV isn't doing much better, and they still use their brand on those stations.) If the rumors were true that the debranding was a precursor to Tribune breaking from the CW to launch their own network, then that would be the most foolhardy move Tribune would have made. Trying to launch a new broadcast network today would be akin to trying to launch a radio soap-opera in the 1960s. That's not to say Dawn Ostroff run of the The CW isn't spectacularly bad (not unlike her doing the same to UPN), but it's not like the Tribune CW stations have many better options. They can't all switch affiliations to Fox, and the syndie market isn't too robust today. I don't think the dis-CW was or is any grand winning plan -- more like repainting the deck chairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jero23 105 Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 Exactly. The trend seems to be moving away from network branding. In the NYC market, WNBC went from being 'NBC 4' back to '4 New York'. WABC went back to referring to itself as Channel 7, although they still do sprinkle in ABC 7 sometimes. WPIX dumping the CW11 branding, referring to themselves now as 'PIX' and going back to the Circle 11 logo was a good move IMO. WGN was never branded as 'CW9' in Chicago. and KTLA was never branded as 'CW5'. That's NYC, which is one probably the only 2 markets where people would still recognize the affiliations of most of its larger stations just by call letters (with few expections). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StudioTech 13 Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 That's NYC, which is one probably the only 2 markets where people would still recognize the affiliations of most of its larger stations just by call letters (with few expections). Re-read the last sentence of my post regarding WGN and KTLA. Also, for a number of years, none of the major NYC stations went by or referred to their calls letters on air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mediadorkx07 0 Posted August 24, 2009 Share Posted August 24, 2009 Let me preface this by saying a) I work for a Tribune station and B) this is not me sucking up via the internet. Sam Zell and his team have been great for the tv side. They expanded their stations before filing for bankruptcy, which was genius. Why? Because when they filed papers for bankruptcy they needed to specify how much they need to run the company (and the stations) -- therefore the new amount reflects the expansion. If they didn't invest before filing, they would probably never be able to and I (along with many of my colleagues) probably would've been laid off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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