LA Times Sale Final, No Shrinking Foreseen

Well, it's been on again and off again, and now it looks like the sale of the Tribune Company and the Los Angeles times is really going to happen. Billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell has agreed to buy the Tribune Company in a deal valued at $8.2 billion, but only costing Zell about $300 million of his own money.

Zell will control a partnership with an employee stock-ownership plan that buys up all the existing stock at $34 a share and turns the Tribune Co. private. The deal gets the Chandler family out of the newspaper business. The theory is that absent stockholders, the company can divert its cash flow into maintaining, rather than cutting, service to its readers and viewers and invest in technology for a print-broadcast-online hybrid.

Guest

• Tony Perry , Los Angeles Times.