• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 10, 2013

One of the country’s largest newspaper publishers is getting out of the business: Tribune Co. announced plans to spin off its newspaper division, which includes the namesake Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant and a handful of other newspapers.

The planned spinoff would leave Tribune Co. with its portfolio of broadcast TV stations, various real estate holdings, and stakes in digital properties like CareerBuilder.
 
The new newspaper-focused company will be known as Tribune Publishing Co., while the rest of the company will continue under its old name.
 
The news follows a number of major strategic moves from Tribune, which has been reinventing itself since emerging from bankruptcy protection earlier this year. Earlier this month, Tribune struck a $2.73-billion deal to acquire 19 TV stations from Local TV, including a number of Fox affiliates in top-35 markets. Tribune also revealed plans to begin producing original broadcast content for its WGN America “superstation” in Chicago, which could make it a national player akin to AMC or FX, according to Tribune CEO Peter Liguori.
 
The company has been soliciting bids for its newspaper business, although it’s unclear if any viable offers were received. Tribune is just the latest in a series of companies that have spun off their ailing newspaper divisions to focus on more profitable TV and entertainment properties.

In 2008 Belo Corp. spun off its newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, into a new company, A.H. Belo, leaving Belo Corp. with a portfolio of 20 stations (recently acquired by Gannett for $1.5 billion). Last year, Media General sold 63 newspapers to Berkshire Hathaway in order to focus on its 18 TV stations. Most recently, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. split itself into newspaper and entertainment-related companies: News Corp. and 21st Century Fox.

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