Corporate Restructuring

Charter Communications Inc. on Friday filed for a prearranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy to get relief from its creditors, as the nation's fourth-largest cable operator strives to keep its head above water and still compete with phone companies and satellite TV providers. The St. Louis, Mo., company seeks to emerge from bankruptcy as early as the end of summer and doesn't plan on selling any of its assets to competitors.

The drastic reinvention plan that General Motors Corp. unveiled Monday would leave the onetime world goliath a smaller, leaner company -- with its legendary Pontiac brand discontinued -- but puts the automaker on a collision course with bondholders that could still land it in Bankruptcy Court. GM proposed a painful downsizing that would eliminate 21,000 workers, 2,600 dealers, $44 billion in debt and four brands -- while making the U.S.

MySpace is looking to do an about-face. The once-red-hot social networking site acquired three years ago by septuagenarian mogul Rupert Murdoch, which landed him on the cover of Wired magazine and won News Corp. praise for embracing the Internet ahead of its old-media rivals, has cooled considerably. New statistics released this week show MySpace has been surpassed by rival Facebook in the U.S. market, where it once dominated, and ad revenue for the site is projected to decline.

The Obama administration is considering an overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would strip the mortgage finance giants of hundreds of billions of dollars in troubled loans and create a new structure to support the home loan market, government officials said. The bad debts the firms own would be placed in new government financial institutions -- so-called bad banks -- that would take responsibility for collecting as much of the outstanding balance as possible.

The Tuesday ouster of Harry Sloan as chief executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. underscores the continued turmoil at the debt-ridden independent studio since it was taken over by private equity owners five years ago. MGM, which is struggling to refinance its $3.7-billion bank loan, will be overseen by a newly created "office of the CEO," composed of production head Mary Parent, Chief Financial Officer Bedi A. Singh and Stephen F. Cooper, a...

Warner Bros. hopes to cure a case of superhero envy. After years of lagging rival Marvel Entertainment in adapting comic-book properties for the big screen and other media, the Burbank studio unveiled a major restructuring of its DC Comics unit Wednesday that will bring its operations under tighter control. The move is an effort by Warner Bros. and corporate parent Time Warner Inc. to implement a new strategy for DC Comics, which will face stiffer competition from a steroid-charged Marvel as a result of Walt Disney Co.'s deal last week to acquire it for $4 billion.

ABC on Thursday became the second major broadcaster to combine its television network and production studio into a single unit, an acknowledgment of troubled economic times and changing viewer preferences. Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, like all television companies, is scaling back amid a deepening recession. Networks are particularly vulnerable now because their audiences are shrinking and their advertising revenues are falling but production costs for dramas and comedies are continuing to climb.

General Motors Corp.'s last-ditch, Hail Mary bid to avoid bankruptcy fell with a thud Wednesday as its bondholders overwhelmingly rejected a deal to swap their debt for equity in the company. That offer was a central element in the automaker's efforts -- guided by the federal government -- to restructure outside of court. Without it the company appears almost certain to file a Chapter 11 petition by Monday.

Jack has risen, hallelujah. After being hit by a bus in a Super Bowl TV/Web commercial Feb. 1, Jack -- the grand-tete CEO-mascot of Jack in the Box -- emerged from his coma March 4, newly inspired. At Jack's direction, the San Diego-based restaurant chain will undertake a brand makeover this spring, including a new logo (Duffy & Partners, Minneapolis), redesigned store environments and a new corporate website that launched Monday. Jack, I feel obliged to point out, is a fictional character.

It was a year ago July that Paramount Vantage laid off the majority of its 100 or so staffers, signaling the end of the studio's short-lived specialty division that brought home a host of Oscar nominations but managed to lose loads of money along the way. Finally this June the studio axed Vantage founder John Lesher, who'd enjoyed an all-too-brief reign as Paramount's top creative executive after leaving Vantage behind. It's one thing to get rid of your top executives and hard-working staff.