Tribune Co

He's about 5 feet 5 and has a bald dome and a beard like an Amish farmer. He revels in the nickname he gave himself years ago: "the Grave Dancer." At 65, Chicagoan Samuel Zell is still apt to arrive at a cocktail party by motorcycle and walk in wearing bluejeans and a Chicago Bears jersey. He thinks like an economist but can talk like a dockworker. He has vacation homes on the beach in Malibu and on the slopes in Sun Valley, Idaho, where people say he skis like a maniac.

Timing seems to be a factor working against Tribune Co. as the media company that owns the Los Angeles Times attempts to auction itself off. For the company's broadcast division, the auction comes too late to catch the hot market for TV stations that existed a couple of years ago and perhaps too early for an advertising bump that analysts project running up to the 2008 presidential election.

Tribune Co. said Monday that it was selling the Spanish-language daily newspaper Hoy New York to ImpreMedia for an undisclosed sum, saying the publication was continuing to lose money. The sale, expected to close during its first quarter, does not include the Hoy newspapers in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Tribune Co. has a new strategy for boosting readership among Southern California's booming Latino population. The Chicago-based media company this week named Javier J. Aldape as general manager and editor of Hoy-Los Angeles, the Spanish-language sister paper of The Times. Aldape, 35, also was named vice president for audience development of the Los Angeles Times Media Group, a post in which he will try to help The Times figure out how to attract more Latino readers.

CHICAGO -- Tribune Co. directors met Tuesday with no resolution of the company's months-long auction. The lack of acceptable buyout offers appeared to be pushing the company toward a recapitalization without outside investors, according to several people familiar with the process. Such a transaction, they said, probably would involve borrowing heavily to pay shareholders a large dividend and spinning off Tribune's TV broadcasting division.

Tribune Co. took a calculated risk when it purchased Times Mirror Co. in 2000, acquiring newspapers in markets where it already owned TV stations despite federal rules barring such combinations. Tribune executives expected the restrictions to be gone by now. That they are not has posed an obstacle to the Chicago-based company's sale.

When the battle for control of Tribune Co. got underway more than eight months ago, investors hoped that a sagging share price would be bolstered as bidders assessed the true value of marquee assets such as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

Tribune Co. said it agreed to sell its daily newspapers in Stamford and Greenwich, Conn., to Gannett Co. for $73 million. The Greenwich Time and the Advocate of Stamford have a combined circulation of 39,000 and are the smallest of the 11 dailies owned by Chicago-based Tribune, which also owns the Los Angeles Times. Tribune is the No. 2 U.S. newspaper publisher by circulation behind McLean, Va.-based Gannett.

Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate magnate who made a fortune by turning around distressed properties, has emerged as a strong contender to buy the company that owns the Los Angeles Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, according to people familiar with ongoing negotiations. Zell's bid for Tribune Co.