• CNNMoney, Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:45 AM

"The Gray Lady needs to get hitched soon, or else she might wind up an old maid," wrote CNNMoney's Paul La Monica, who holds that New York Times Co. would be wise to get with the program in a fast-consolidating business. "Wall Street is not overly confident about the company's growth prospects," he adds--although the entire newspaper industry has been beaten down as readers and advertisers go digital. The Times has met with some success online via its TimesSelect service and Web guide About.com. Yet these are but tiny bits of its overall revenue base. Of course, La Monica notes, there is a huge barrier to a sale: The Ochs Sulzberger family owns 88 percent of the company's class B shares, which give it the right to elect 9 of the company's 13 directors. "So barring a change in the Times' stock structure, it's virtually impossible to imagine the company agreeing to a sale unless the family wants to sell out, which it has shown no indication of doing," he says.

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