Companies

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- One day after Time Inc. gave notice to 105 unlucky employees, including some of its highest-ranking veteran executives, people inside the company -- and at sibling units within Time Warner -- are asking what’s next? In addition to saving on personnel costs -- a savings Time Inc. would not disclose yesterday -- the company clearly plans a run at ramping up its own brand, no...

After a 13-year run, The Los Angeles Times is shutting its national edition next week, officials said yesterday. The separate national edition has been an endangered species for years, kept alive as a way to give the newspaper's reporting a physical presence in Washington and New York. But the edition was costly and the paper's owner, the Tribune Company, had been planning to shut it earlier this...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Time Inc. today slashed 105 employees from its rolls, including some of its highest longtime publishing executives. Presidents, exec VPs Among those losing their jobs are Jack Haire, exec VP in charge of corporate ad sales; Richard Atkinson, exec VP in charge of the news and information group; Eileen Naughton, president, Time magazine; David Kieselstein, president, the...

NEW YORK (AP) - Under other circumstances, 2006 might look like a pretty good year for the media industry. The Winter Olympics and a midterm election are sure to boost advertising spending, the economy is humming along and consumers seem to be spending. But these are hardly normal circumstances. The broad shift of viewers and advertising dollars to the Internet is deeply troubling to many media...

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - There was a time when Wall Street treated the CEOs of the largest media companies almost like demigods. The heads of Viacom (Research), Time Warner, News Corp., (Research) and Disney (Research) predicted that revenues from their films, television shows, cable networks, and magazines would keep pace with the swiftest growth companies. Investors nodded worshipfully and loaded up...

Everyone trying to lose weight should know that the trick is to cut fat and not muscle. This is not a lesson media companies have learned. Last month, Private Capital Management, a $32-billion money management firm, issued a sell-or-be-gone ultimatum to the board of Knight Ridder, the second largest newspaper proprietor in the land. And Knight Ridder has just received preliminary takeover bids...

NEW YORK - Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL and one of the main architects of the disastrous AOL-Time Warner combination, now says the world's biggest media company should be broken up into four business units. Case, who became a lightning rod for angry investors following the debacle, laid out his argument for breaking up Time Warner Inc. in an essay published in The Washington Post on Sunday...

LONDON: When David Blunkett resigned recently from the cabinet of Prime Minister Tony Blair, for the second time in less than a year, he did not have to wait long for new employment. Within weeks he re-emerged as a columnist at The Sun, the best-selling newspaper in Britain. For The Sun, a tabloid that thrives on scandals like those that brought down Blunkett when he was home secretary and, later...

SAN FRANCISCO – When Jeffrey Zalles needed a new cashier for his coin laundry in the South of Market district, his help-wanted ad in the San Francisco Chronicle brought just four responses. So Zalles posted a notice on Craigslist, a San Francisco-based network of websites that specialize in classified advertising. His cyber-ad drew 400 applicants. Zalles found his cashier and hasn't relied on the...

At least two potential buyers made preliminary bids Friday to acquire Knight Ridder Inc., the country's second-largest newspaper chain, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Among those submitting offers by the first-round deadline were investment firm Texas Pacific Group and an alliance of private equity investors Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Blackstone Group and Providence...