Corporate Restructuring

Like him or loathe him, Rupert Murdoch is the last of the great media swashbucklers, a throwback to the pirates, cutthroats and visionaries who used to run the business before it was engulfed and devoured by giant risk-averse corporate behemoths. The earthquake that rocked News Corp. this week was a typical Murdoch seismic event. As one of his top executives once told me: "Rupert is a gambler. He tolerates noble failure more than complacency."

Six Flags Inc., the theme-park chain owned by Washington Redskins chieftain Dan Snyder, has done a solid job of cleaning up its parks, with both revenue and attendance improving last year. But now it faces a bigger challenge trying to clean up its balance sheet. Last week, the company made its latest move to restructure a debt load of more than $2 billion that Snyder inherited when he acquired Six Flags four years ago.

Chrysler's woes could turn out to be a blessing for General Motors Corp., paving a clearer path for the troubled company to avoid bankruptcy. With less than a month before its government-imposed deadline to restructure, GM is still attempting to reduce obligations to the United Auto Workers union and to holders of billions of dollars in the automaker's bonds.

A dozen Obama administration Cabinet secretaries and top officials are fanning out across the Midwest in an unusual marshaling of government firepower to tell people in communities hit hard by the bankruptcy of General Motors Corp. that Washington will help with short-term relief and long-term plans to reshape the U.S. auto industry.

Driven by a need to overhaul its program development process and cut costs, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC has finalized a complex consolidation of its ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios operations. The restructuring and creation of the ABC Entertainment Group, announced in January but completed only Thursday, will combine many of the business and creative functions of the two units.

The new General Motors hoping to emerge from bankruptcy this week will find itself mired in a weak car market, besieged by competitors vying to eat up its dwindling market share and pressed to change its corporate culture, all under the eyes of a strange new government ownership structure.

Less than six weeks after filing for protection from its creditors, General Motors Corp. is expected to emerge from bankruptcy today as a leaner, greener company but saddled with doubts as to whether it can turn a profit for its new owners, the American public. Amid speculation that GM will change the blue in its classic logo to green to highlight its environmentally friendly rebirth, the company will have a tough time turning its bottom line from red to black, analysts said.

GM emerged from its warp-speed bankruptcy Friday delivering the following message: This won't be your father's General Motors. Smaller, less debt-ridden and mindful of the $50-billion bet that taxpayers have made on the automaker's survival, company executives pledged a new era of innovation and a steely focus on customers.

One of Hollywood's juiciest television dramas came to a close Monday when NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman said he was leaving the network after two tumultuous years. In the end, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker's big gamble to hand over the keys to NBC's storied legacy to an aggressive young television producer who vowed to revolutionize the network backfired.

Tribune Co. Chief Operating Officer Randy Michaels signaled Thursday that his team wants to lead Tribune's operations when it emerges from Bankruptcy Court. Responding to speculation that Tribune Chairman Sam Zell would leave Tribune when creditors holding $8.6 billion in debt take control, Michaels said in an e-mail to employees that "while the ownership structure of the company is likely to change, current operating management is committed, and intends to remain in place during and after the restructuring."