Tribune Company seeks FCC action

Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Company filed a series of applications with the Federal Communications Commission necessary to emerge from bankruptcy protection with its broadcast portfolio intact. This will require the FCC to sign off on assignment of their broadcast licenses to the reorganized, post-bankruptcy iteration of Tribune Co., along with continued cross-ownership waivers. "Very simply," Tribune Co. Chief Executive Randy Michaels and Chief Operating Officer Gerry Spector wrote in a note to the company's employees, "this is a necessary step to ensure the orderly transition of our licenses to the new ownership structure that will be in place once we emerge." The company is at least temporarily exempt from restrictions on newspaper-broadcast combinations in Chicago, Los Angeles, South Florida, and Hartford, Conn. New York also is considered a cross-ownership market for Tribune Co. because, in addition to WPIX-TV, it retained a small percentage of Newsday when it sold that newspaper to Cablevision in 2008.