Tribune Broadcasting | Principles & Practices

Anthony Phillips

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Tribune Company
435 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
312.222.9100 / www.tribune.com

Company Overview

In 1847, this Chicago based company was created with the start up of the Chicago Daily Tribune, which had a circulation of 400 copies (1). After success in the newspaper industry, the Tribune Company has expanded its media platforms with the launch of its first radio station WGN in Chicago in 1924, and then its insertion into the TV industry in 1947 (2). With its rapid expansion in publishing, digital and broadcasting, Tribune has now become one of the principal multimedia companies in the nation.

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Tribune Broadcasting Overview

After the company launched its first television station, KTLA- TV, Los Angles in 1947, the company expanded rapidly, tripling its station ownership by the next year. Now, Tribune is one of the leading broadcasters, with ownership of 23 major-market television stations across the US reaching an estimated 80 percent of TV households. The company also has a hand in the cable industry, with the WGN America cable network, which has an average viewership of over 70 million households through cable and satellite providers (3).

Executives

Peter Liguori

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CEO of the Tribune Company, Liguori has worked for the Fox Broadcast Company, and most recently as Chief Operating Officer of Discovery Communications before coming on board with Tribune.

Larry Wert

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President of Broadcast media, Wert was appointed in February 2013, and is in charge of the company’s 23 television stations and WGN Radio in Chicago (4).

Matt Cherniss

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President & General Manager of WGN America & Tribune Studios, Cherniss is responsible for creation, strategy, and operations of the WGN superstation and Tribune Studios (5).

Chandler Bigelow

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Appointed in March 2008 as Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Bigelow oversees all corporate finance functions (6).

Assets

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The staple of its broadcasting, WGN America, offers an array of content as “home of the superfan” with popular shows in syndication, movies, news, and Chicago based sports (7). As of July 2012, coverage estimates for WGN America were a little over 66 percent reaching a little under 76 million households (10).

With its ownership of 23 major-market television stations, Tribune has thirteen affiliations with The CW, seven with Fox, two with MyNetworkTV, and one with ABC (8). In addition to these major market stations, Tribune Broadcasting also has ownership of the CLTV, Chicagoland Television, which partnered up with Tribunes prominent WGN-TV station in Chicago to deliver 24 hour local and regional news coverage for the Chicago Area (18).

Financial Information

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Tribune used to be a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange as of 1983, but in late 2007 the company became privatized again. In December 2008, due to an unexpected decline of revenue and too much debt to handle, Tribune had to file petitions for Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court (11). After four years of restructuring, Tribune was able to recover from Chapter 11 with a new term loan of $1.1 billion and $300 million revolving credit facility to maintain operations of the company (12). Even though Tribune is now a private company, they still voluntarily report annual and quarterly financial statements, but they are only estimations and subject to change. On September 23, 2012 the third quarter results were released publicly, and the company had an estimated $2.2 billion operating revenue with a net income of $254 million. Since these financial statements are voluntary for the company they only have reports of the entire company and subsidiaries together. The only assets reported for the broadcasting division were the broadcast rights for this quarter, which were $26 million (9). With an up haul of restructuring and reorganization, Tribune has shown with their profitable assets that they are on their way out of bankruptcy. Tribune also has equity interests in broadcasting and digital content like the Food Network, NimbleTV, and TOPIX, which all have been helpful in its financial return and have contributed a good amount of success to Tribune’s already existing assets.

In the News

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As of April 2^nd Tribune Broadcasting’s creative division, Tribune Creative Group has partnered up with the production company Turbo Dog Productions. With its advances with equipment and creative expertise, this newly formed partnership will expand Tribunes footprint in its advertising. Turbo Dog Productions will now be located in Manhattan under the newly formed Pix11 studio, with state-of-the-art equipment like Motion Capture technology, a Virtual Camera system, full CGI and VFX, and multiple green screens (14). Andrew Kessler, CEO of Turbo Dog Productions stated that this new collaboration, “will ensure we remain significantly ahead of our competition and further our ability to provide both our domestic and overseas clients with the highest quality of content over the full spectrum of visual creative materials” (14).

PHL17, Tribune’s MyNetworkTV affiliate in Philadelphia announced on March 28 that the station would broadcast the 2013 Season Opener for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team game against the Atlanta Braves, with a pregame show at 6:30pm following up to the opener at 7:05pm (15). Nielsen ratings the next day estimated that the game averaged an 11.5 household rating, which set an unprecedented record high for the station over the last 17 years. These results gave an estimate that over 339 thousand homes tuned into the game, making it the number one programmed broadcast for the night (16).

Combined with its already prominent scheduling of popular syndicated shows like 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and Scrubs, WGN America announced on March 26^th that they would be adding additional network shows to the mix. Hoping to boost ratings, Tribunes cable network will be airing marathon blocks of

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The Vampire Diaries and Arrow. Original content from The CW Network, both of these shows have been the most popular shows to date for the network, with The Vampire Diaries being the highest-rated drama while Arrow has been the most-watched show. With the new addition of these shows through block programming, WGN America hopes to get viewers attention so they “can catch up on all the action-packed drama before the final original episodes of the season on The CW” (17).

Works Cited

(1)– http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?page_id=2313

(2)– http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/tribune-company-history/

(3)– http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?page_id=4200

(4)– http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?page_id=5253

(5)– http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/news/3169-tribune-broadcasting-forms-new-studio-hires-new-head-of-wgn-america

(6)– http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?page_id=2352

(7)– http://www.wgnamerica.com/

(8)– http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?page_id=2311

(9)– http://www.tribune.com/emergence/Tribune_2010_2011_Q32012_Financial_Statements.pdf

(10)–http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/08/18/cable-network-coverage-estimates-as-of-july-2012/145322/

(11)–http://dm.epiq11.com/TRB/Project