Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Could Belo's move spark similar moves at other newspaper companies?

* Corrected
Belo Corp. is splitting itself up, moving its current debt of $1.2B to the TV business and leaving its new newspaper company, A.H. Belo, debt-free. (The Dallas Morning News, The Riverside(CA)Press Enterprise and The Providence Journal, where the Guild represents workers.)

From Content Bridges: "It's an interesting bet and one that will be watched from several angles by the industry and its investors. ... The Belo newspaper approach stands against the soon-to-close (?) Tribune approach. That one ladles more than $10B in debt on the "new Tribune," highly leveraging it. Belo seems to understand that each dollar it puts into debt service is a dollar it can't use to keep the newspaper content and ad engines primed, until that eureka moment arrives."

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