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The battling parties in Tribune Co.’s fractious bankruptcy case planned to sit down Monday for another day of mediation aimed at forging a settlement of legal claims surrounding the company’s 2007 leveraged buyout.
But at a status hearing in Delaware before the mediation session began, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey spent much of his time anticipating how to proceed assuming the mediation fails. Get the full story »
Dish Network’s 14.3 million customers nationwide will have to make do without FX, National Geographic Channel and some other cable channels while the satellite service and News Corp. haggle in the latest corporate struggle over carriage fees.
A Senate bill passed unamimously late Wednesday would require television stations and cable companies to limit the volume of ads so they’re consistent with the programs they accompany.
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | Eyeing a move to southern California for both professional and personal reasons, former TV anchor Diann Burns and her talent agent husband, Marc Watts, have placed their 13-room, 5,752-square-foot Lincoln Park mansion on the market for $4.825 million.
Burns, 54, was an anchor at top-rated WLS-Ch. 7 for close to two decades before jumping to WBBM-Ch. 2 in 2003. She left “CBS-2″ in 2008 when her contract was not renewed.
Since last spring, she has been hosting the Chicago Urban League’s “Next TV” program, which airs Sunday mornings on Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32. Get the full story »
From The New York Times | The Wall Street Journal says its revenue climbed 17 percent in the period since June.
The news bucks the overall downward trend in the newspaper business. Even print advertising revenue, which has been in steep decline at most newspapers for the past few years, grew more than 21 percent at the Journal.
Conrad Black and wife Barbara Amiel in July of 2010, leaving the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/MCT)
Bloomberg News | Conrad Black’s 2007 convictions for fraud and obstructing justice should be thrown out because it’s impossible to tell whether jurors found him guilty under a now-invalid legal theory, his lawyer told a federal appeals court.
A three-judge panel in Chicago is hearing Black’s case today for the second time following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that narrowed the scope of the so-called honest services fraud statute, the law used to prosecute the former Hollinger International Inc. chairman.
“None of the fraud or obstruction convictions can survive examination of the trial record,” Black’s appellate lawyer, Miguel Estrada, told the judges during oral arguments. Prosecutors, in court filings, said there’s ample evidence to support Black’s conviction on other grounds. Get the full story »
From Canada’s National Post | Attorney’s for former Sun-Times publisher and media mogul Conrad Black will appear in Chicago’s 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to argue that Black’s fraud convictions should be tossed. Black was released from prison after serving two years of a 6.5-year sentence for breaking the so-called “honest services” law.
Get the full story >>
Tribune Co. has reached a settlement with Angelo, Gordon & Co. and Oaktree Capital Management, two of the largest senior creditors in its bankruptcy case, that will form the basis of a new plan of reorganization for the company. Get the full story »
Tribune Co. has hired Chicago law firm Novack and Macey to explore the possibility of bringing legal action against Morgan Stanley, the New York investment bank.
The disclosure came in a bankruptcy court filing Friday asking for retroactive permission to hire the firm, which began looking into the matter in late August. Get the full story »
Ward Quaal, who was hired in 1941 as a WGN-AM 720 staff announcer and went on to shape that station and WGN-Ch. 9 as an executive of Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.’s WGN Contintental Broadcasting, died Friday in an area nursing home. He was 91.
The rapid rise of digital music sales has stalled in the United States, the world’s biggest and most important market, with sales in the first half of 2010 flat compared with a year before. According to research group Nielsen, digital sales were flat in the U.S. market after a 13 percent increase from 2008 to 2009 and 28 percent growth from 2007 to 2008. Get the full story »
From The New York Times | Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, announced Friday that he plans to leave the network after Comcast’s deal to take over NBC is complete.
Online movie rental company Netflix Inc. and NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution have expanded their license deal that covers TV shows subscribers can watch instantly by streaming them online, the companies said Friday. Financial terms of the multiyear deal were not disclosed. Get the full story »
Time Warner Inc. could offer premium video-on-demand as early as the first quarter for $20 to $30 per movie in a trial, the company’s CFO said Thursday.
Time Warner is considering making movies available for rent on pay television services shortly after their theatrical release and before their DVD release, Chief Financial Officer John Martin said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York. Get the full story »
Blockbuster's existing stores will remain open. (AP)
Blockbuster Inc. announced early Thursday that the company and its U.S. subsidiaries have filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, hurt by major shifts in the way consumers view movies and media. Get the full story »
