Field of Dreams baseball site sold to group led by Oak Lawn couple

They bought it, and now they hope even more people will come.

An investor group led by an Oak Lawn couple has completed its purchase of the famed "Field of Dreams" movie site in Iowa with plans to preserve it and build an adjacent baseball training and tournament complex. The 193-acre property includes the field and farmhouse made famous in the 1989 Kevin Costner baseball classic.

Go the Distance Baseball LLC, which counts baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs among its investors, closed on the Dyersville, Iowa, property last week for $3.4 million plus interest in a controversial deal that was 2 1/2 years in the making.

"We've got that big milestone under our belt now, and we're just getting into the business of opening the (site)," said Denise Stillman, president and CEO of Go the Distance. She and her husband, Mike, began their pursuit of the land, near Dubuque, in July 2010.

The Stillmans have said they saw "Field of Dreams" on one of their first dates and decided to try to buy the property shortly after they learned it was for sale.

"I'm just really excited about what lies ahead," Denise Stillman said Wednesday. "We've got so much work to do to get the field ready to open again April 1. That's when the tourist site opens."

All-Star Ballpark Heaven is scheduled to open with 12 fields and 60 team "clubhouses" for lodging in 2014, before doubling the number of each by 2017. Once complete, the complex will also include a community center, banquet facilities and an auditorium, among other amenities, according to Go The Distance. Construction is to begin this spring.

"My family's farm has been part of the landscape for more than a century," seller Don Lansing said in a news release announcing the deal's completion. "I have been honored to care for it my entire life and know the Stillmans and their group will care for the movie site like I did."

Lansing grew up in the farmhouse shown in the film. He and his wife, Becky, will continue to work with the new owners, such as by helping maintain the property and by leading tours, Denise Stillman said.

The deal was first announced Oct. 30, 2011, pending investor support, tax incentives and zoning approval, but was dogged by claims from nearby landowners that the complex would snarl traffic and worsen flooding and that the town acted inappropriately in granting a zoning change.

The site attracts an estimated 65,000 visitors per year.

rmanker@tribune.com

Twitter: @RobManker

Read More..

HTC rumored to debut flagship ‘M7′ smartphone at CES

HTC (2498) will reportedly unveil a new flagship smartphone code-named “M7″ at the Consumer Electronics Show next week. The rumor comes to us from XDA-Developers forum member “Football,” who reported accurate information about unreleased HTC devices in the past. The phone is believed to the be the successor to the One X and could be equipped with a 4.7-inch full HD 1920 x 1080-pixel display, a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor, a 13-megapixel rear camera, LTE and HSPA+ connectivity, Beats Audio, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory and a 2,300 mAh battery. The M7 is also said to be HTC’s first smartphone to utilize on-screen navigation keys in place of traditional hardware buttons. 

[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]

The problem for HTC in the past has been the company’s ability to market its high-end devices to consumers. Despite class-leading features and hardware, HTC’s smartphone sales have stalled in the past year and the company has continued to lose market share. It will be interesting to see if it can turn things around in 2013.

[More from BGR: Microsoft lashes out at Google’s decision to spurn Windows Phone]

The Consumer Electronics Show is scheduled to take place from January 8th to January 11th in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This article was originally published by BGR

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: HTC rumored to debut flagship ‘M7′ smartphone at CES
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/htc-rumored-to-debut-flagship-m7%e2%80%b2-smartphone-at-ces/
Link To Post : HTC rumored to debut flagship ‘M7′ smartphone at CES
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

U.S. pop singer Patti Page dies at age 85

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – American pop singer Patti Page, whose 1950 hit “Tennessee Waltz” topped the charts for months, has died in Southern California, her manager said on Wednesday. She was 85.

Nicknamed “The Singing’ Rage,” Page sold more than 100 million albums in her 67-year career, which included 1950s chart toppers “(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window,” “I Went to Your Wedding” and “All My Love (Bolero).”

She died on Tuesday in a nursing home in Encinitas, north of San Diego, after suffering congestive heart failure, her manager, Michael Glynn, told Reuters.

“She’d been having some health issues for the past couple of years,” Glynn said. “She was actually doing better yesterday. I spoke to her and she sounded well.”

Page won a Grammy for her 1998 album “Live at Carnegie Hall: The 50th Anniversary Concert” and will be honored with a lifetime achievement Grammy in February. She had expected to attend the ceremony, Glynn said.

Page was born in Oklahoma as Clara Ann Fowler in 1927 and was known for her light, every-girl voice. Her first big hit was “With My Eyes Wide Open, I’m Dreaming,” which peaked at No. 11 on the charts in 1950.

Eight years later, Page scored her penultimate top-10 song, “Left Right Out of Your Heart,” as rock ‘n’ roll was emerging as the dominant trend in popular music.

Her final big hit was “Hush … Hush Sweet Charlotte” in 1965. The song served as the theme of a film of the same name starring Bette Davis.

Her reputation was burnished in recent years when rock group The White Stripes covered her 1952 song “Conquest” on their Grammy-winning 2007 album “Icky Thump.”

She was married three times, most recently in 1990.

Page is survived by her two children, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: U.S. pop singer Patti Page dies at age 85
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/u-s-pop-singer-patti-page-dies-at-age-85/
Link To Post : U.S. pop singer Patti Page dies at age 85
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Well: Good and Bad, the Little Things Add Up in Fitness

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

The past year in fitness has been alternately inspiring, vexing and diverting, as my revisiting of all of the Phys Ed columns published in 2012 makes clear. Taken as a whole, the latest exercise-related science tells us that the right types and amounts of exercise will almost certainly lengthen your life, strengthen your brain, affect your waistline and even clear debris from inside your body’s cells. But too much exercise, other 2012 science intimates, might have undesirable effects on your heart, while popping painkillers, donning stilettos and sitting and reading this column likewise have their costs.

With New Year’s exercise resolutions still fresh and hopefully unbroken on this, day two of 2013, it now seems like the perfect time to review these and other lessons of the past year in fitness science.

First, since I am habitually both overscheduled and indolent, I was delighted to report, as I did in June, that the “sweet sport” for health benefits seems to come from jogging or moderately working out for only a brief period a few times a week.

Specifically, an encouraging 2012 study of 52,656 American adults found that those who ran 1 to 20 miles per week at an average pace of about 10 or 11 minutes per mile — my leisurely jogging speed, in fact — lived longer, on average, than sedentary adults. They also lived longer than the group (admittedly small) who ran more than 20 miles per week.

“These data certainly support the idea that more running is not needed to produce extra health and mortality benefits,” Dr. Carl J. Lavie, a cardiologist in New Orleans and co-author of the study told me. “If anything,” he said, “it appears that less running is associated with the best protection from mortality risk.”

Similarly, in a study from Denmark that I wrote about in September, a group of pudgy young men lost more weight after 13 weeks of exercising moderately for about 30 minutes several times a week than a separate group who worked out twice as much.

The men who exercised the most, the study authors discovered, also subsequently ate more than the moderate exercisers.

Even more striking, however, the vigorous exercisers subsequently sat around more each day than did the men who had exercised less, motion sensors worn by all of the volunteers showed.

“They were fatigued,” said Mads Rosenkilde, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Copenhagen and the study’s co-author.

Meanwhile, the men who had worked out for only about 30 minutes seemed to be energized by their new routines. They stood up, walked, stretched and even bounced in place more than they once had. “It looks like they were taking the stairs now, not the elevators, and just moving around more,” Mr. Rosenkilde said. “It was little things, but they add up.”

And that idea was, in fact, perhaps the most dominant exercise-science theme of 2012: that little things add up, with both positive and pernicious effects. Another of my favorite studies of 2012 found that a mere 10 minutes of daily physical activity increased life spans in adults by almost two years, even if the adults remained significantly overweight.

But the inverse of that finding proved to be equally true: not fitting periods of activity into a person’s daily life also affected life span. Perhaps the most chilling sentence that I wrote all year reported that, according to a large study of Western adults, “Every single hour of television watched after the age of 25 reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by 21.8 minutes.”

I am watching much less television these days.

But not all of the new fitness science I covered this year was quite so sobering or, to be honest, consequential. Some of the more practical studies simply validated common sense, including reports that to succeed in ball sports, keep your eye on the ball; during hot-weather exercise, pour cold water over your head; and, finally, on the day before a marathon, eat a lot.

But when I think about the science that has most affected how I plan my life, I return again and again to those studies showing that physical activity alters how long and how well we live. My days of heedless youth are behind me. So I won’t soon forget the study I wrote about in September detailing how moderate, frequent physical activity in midlife can delay the onset of illness and frailty in old age. Exercise won’t prevent you from aging, of course. Only death does that. But this study and others from this year underscore that staying active, even in moderate doses, dramatically improves how your aging body feels and responds.

Aging also inspired my favorite reader comment of 2012, which was posted in response to a research scientist’s name. “‘Dr. Head,’” the reader wrote. “That shall be the name of my all-senior-citizen metal band,” which, if its members gyrate and vigorously bound about like Mick Jagger on his recent tour, should ensure themselves decades in which to robustly perform.

Read More..

Dow soars 2% after deal to avoid 'cliff'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks kicked off the new year with their best day in over a year on Wednesday, sparked by relief over a last-minute deal in Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that threatened to derail the economy's growth.

In 2013's first trading session, the S&P 500 achieved its biggest one-day gain since December 20, 2011, pushing the benchmark index to its highest close since September 14.

Concerns over Washington's ability to sidestep the cliff had driven the S&P 500 down for five straight sessions, before signs that a resolution was near sent the benchmark index higher on the final trading session of 2012.

The CBOE Volatility Index or the VIX , Wall Street's favorite gauge of investor anxiety, dropped 18.5 percent to 14.68 at the close. The VIX has fallen 35.4 percent over the past two sessions, the biggest 2-day percentage drop in the history of the index.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 308.41 points, or 2.35 percent, to 13,412.55 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 36.23 points, or 2.54 percent, to finish at 1,462.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 92.75 points, or 3.07 percent, to end at 3,112.26.

U.S. markets were closed on Tuesday for New Year's Day.

Market breadth reflected the strong rally, with 10 stocks rising for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 of the S&P 500 industry sector indexes gained at least 1 percent. The S&P financial index shot up 2.9 percent.

The S&P Information Technology index gained 3.2 percent, including Hewlett-Packard , which climbed 5.4 percent to $15.02. HP's gain followed a miserable 2012 when the stock fell nearly 45 percent as one of the S&P 500's worst performers for 2012.

On Tuesday, Congress passed a bill to prevent huge tax hikes and delay spending cuts that would have pushed the world's largest economy off a "fiscal cliff" and possibly into recession.

The vote avoided steep income-tax increases for a majority of Americans, but failed to resolve a major showdown over cutting the budget deficit, leaving investors and businesses with only limited clarity about the outlook for the economy. Spending cuts of $109 billion in military and domestic programs were temporarily delayed, and another fight over raising the U.S. debt limit also looms.

"We got through the fiscal cliff. The next big thing, and probably more contentious thing, is negotiating the debt ceiling and possibly entitlement reform in early 2013," said Jim Russell, senior equity strategist for U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Cincinnati.

Hard choices about budget cuts and the critical need to raise the debt ceiling will confront Congress about the same time in two months "so the fur will be flying," Russell said.

U.S. stocks ended 2012 with the S&P 500 up 13.4 percent for the year, as investors largely shrugged off worries about the fiscal cliff. For the year, the Dow gained 7.3 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 15.9 percent.

Bank shares rose following news that U.S. regulators are close to securing another multibillion-dollar settlement with the largest banks to resolve allegations that they unlawfully cut corners when foreclosing on delinquent borrowers.

Bank of America Corp rose 3.7 percent to $12.03 and Citigroup Inc gained 4.3 percent to $41.25. The KBW bank index rose 3.2 percent.

Shares of Zipcar Inc surged 47.8 percent to $12.18 after Avis Budget Group Inc said it would buy Zipcar for about $500 million in cash to compete with larger rivals Hertz and Enterprise Holdings Inc. Avis advanced 4.8 percent to $20.77.

Shares of Apple rose 3.2 percent to $549.03, helping to lift the S&P information technology index up 3.2 percent following a report that the most valuable tech company has started testing a new iPhone and a new version of its iOS software.

Economic data from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. manufacturing ended 2012 on an upswing despite fears about the fiscal cliff, but the Commerce Department reported that construction spending fell in November for the first time in eight months.

Volume was heavy, with about 7.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE MKT and the Nasdaq, well above the 2012 daily average of 6.42 billion.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

House Republicans balk at fiscal cliff deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last-minute efforts to step back from the "fiscal cliff" ran into trouble on Tuesday as Republicans in the House of Representatives balked at a deal that would prevent Washington from pushing the world's biggest economy into a recession.

House Republicans complained that a bill passed by the Senate in a late-night show of unity to prevent a budget crisis contained tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans but no spending cuts. Some conservatives sought to change the bill to add cuts.

That would set up a high-stakes showdown between the two chambers and risk a stinging rebuke from financial markets that are due to open in Asia in a few hours.

The Senate would refuse to accept any changes to the bill, a Senate aide said, and it appeared increasingly possible that Congress could push the country over the fiscal cliff after all, despite months of effort.

Strictly speaking, the United States went over the cliff in the first minutes of the New Year because Congress failed to produce legislation to halt $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts that start kicking in on January 1.

But with financial markets and federal government offices closed for the New Year's Day holiday, lawmakers had a little more time to work out a compromise without real-world consequences.

The Senate bill drew overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats alike when it passed by a vote of 89 to 8.

But Republicans who control the House expressed wide dismay with the measure, which includes only $12 billion in spending cuts along with $620 billion in tax increases on top earners.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, told reporters after huddling with other Republicans that he does not support the Senate's bill.

"The lack of spending cuts in the Senate bill was a universal concern amongst members in today's meeting. Conversations with members will continue throughout the afternoon on the path forward," said Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper.

Republicans returned for a second meeting at 5:15 p.m. EST (2215 GMT).

Republicans could face a backlash if they scuttle the deal. Income tax rates rose back to 1990s levels for all Americans at midnight, and across-the-board spending cuts on defense and domestic programs would begin to kick in on Wednesday.

Economists say the combination of tax cuts and spending cuts could cause the economy to shrink, and public opinion polls show Republicans would shoulder the blame.

MARKET DISCIPLINE?

Lingering uncertainty over U.S. fiscal policy has unnerved investors and depressed business activity for months.

Financial markets have staved off a steep plunge on the assumption that Washington would ultimately avoid pushing the country off the fiscal cliff into a recession.

Several Republicans said the fight could spill over until Wednesday, at which point they could be pressured by financial markets to accept the Senate bill.

"Everyone knows once the markets open tomorrow our courage drops in direct proportion to the market fall," said one Republican lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The bill passed by the Democratic-led Senate at around 2 a.m. would raise income taxes on families earning more than $450,000 per year and limit the amount of deductions they can take to lower their tax bill.

Low temporary rates that have been in place for less-affluent taxpayers for the past decade would be made permanent, along with a range of targeted tax breaks put in place to fight the 2009 economic downturn.

However, workers would see up to $2,000 more taken out of their paychecks annually as a temporary payroll tax cut was set to expire.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would increase budget deficits by nearly $4 trillion over the coming 10 years, compared to the budget savings that would occur if the extreme measures of the cliff were to kick in.

But the bill would actually save $650 billion during that time period when measured against the tax and spending policies that were in effect on Monday, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent group that has pushed for more aggressive deficit savings.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)

Read More..

9 Apps to Fast-Track Your New Years’ Resolutions

Whether your goal in 2013 is to lose five pounds, manage your finances, or spend more time with friends and family, there are a growing number of apps that fall into the self-help category and can assist you in accomplishing these resolutions.

At Mashable we’ve tested a lot of them out, but we’re still always hearing about new ones. There are a ton of fitness and health apps to chose from, but you might be pleasantly surprised to know they’re not all about weight loss. A device and app called Tinke monitors your stress levels and how deeply you’re breathing. An app called Fig will remind you to drink more water, skip fried foods and take breaks at work to keep you feeling good. Arianna Huffington also released an app called, “GPS for the Soul” that focuses on wellbeing.

[More from Mashable: Time Machine App Transports You Back to 2012]

Other apps can help you organize your social life, make new friends or save money for a vacation.

We’ve compiled a list of apps that can help you accomplish all sorts of goals this year. Check it out and let us know if we missed any that you plan on using in 2013.

[More from Mashable: It’s Easy to Save Videos From Facebook Poke Permanently]

OurGroceries

If you’re trying to eat out less and cook at home more often, make sure you always have a current grocery list at your fingertips. Mashable wrote about several grocery list apps this year. The standout seems to be OurGroceries for Android and iOS. If you have roommates or a significant other, everyone can download the app and sync lists. That way if you’re making a quick after-work trip to the grocery store you’ll not only be able to see the items you added, but also see what they’ve added, too.

Click here to view this gallery.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, hocus-focus

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: 9 Apps to Fast-Track Your New Years’ Resolutions
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.

The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his “runaway bride,” Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year’s Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old “Playmate of the Month” in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.

Playboy said on Tuesday that the couple celebrated at a New Year’s Eve party at the mansion with guests that included comic Jon Lovitz, Gene Simmons of KISS and baseball star Evan Longoria.

The bride wore a strapless gown in soft pink, Hefner a black tux. Hefner’s been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Study Suggests Lower Mortality Risk for Overweight People

A century ago, Elsie Scheel was the perfect woman. So said a 1912 article in The New York Times about how Miss Scheel, 24, was chosen by the “medical examiner of the 400 ‘co-eds’ ” at Cornell University as a woman “whose very presence bespeaks perfect health.”

Miss Scheel, however, was hardly model-thin. At 5-foot-7 and 171 pounds, she would, by today’s medical standards, be clearly overweight. (Her body mass index was 27; 25 to 29.9 is overweight.)

But a new report suggests that Miss Scheel may have been onto something. The report on nearly three million people found that those whose B.M.I. ranked them as overweight had less risk of dying than people of normal weight. And while obese people had a greater mortality risk over all, those at the lowest obesity level (B.M.I. of 30 to 34.9) were not more likely to die than normal-weight people.

The report, although not the first to suggest this relationship between B.M.I. and mortality, is by far the largest and most carefully done, analyzing nearly 100 studies, experts said.

But don’t scrap those New Year’s weight-loss resolutions and start gorging on fried Belgian waffles or triple cheeseburgers.

Experts not involved in the research said it suggested that overweight people need not panic unless they have other indicators of poor health and that depending on where fat is in the body, it might be protective or even nutritional for older or sicker people. But over all, piling on pounds and becoming more than slightly obese remains dangerous.

“We wouldn’t want people to think, ‘Well, I can take a pass and gain more weight,’ ” said Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of Harvard Medical School’s nutrition division.

Rather, he and others said, the report, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that B.M.I., a ratio of height to weight, should not be the only indicator of healthy weight.

“Body mass index is an imperfect measure of the risk of mortality,” and factors like blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar must be considered, said Dr. Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Dr. Steven Heymsfield, executive director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, said that for overweight people, if indicators like cholesterol “are in the abnormal range, then that weight is affecting you,” but that if indicators are normal, there’s no reason to “go on a crash diet.”

Experts also said the data suggested that the definition of “normal” B.M.I., 18.5 to 24.9, should be revised, excluding its lowest weights, which might be too thin.

The study did show that the two highest obesity categories (B.M.I. of 35 and up) are at high risk. “Once you have higher obesity, the fat’s in the fire,” Dr. Blackburn said.

But experts also suggested that concepts of fat be refined.

“Fat per se is not as bad as we thought,” said Dr. Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, professor of medicine and public health at the University of California, Irvine.

“What is bad is a type of fat that is inside your belly,” he said. “Non-belly fat, underneath your skin in your thigh and your butt area — these are not necessarily bad.”

He added that, to a point, extra fat is accompanied by extra muscle, which can be healthy.

Still, it is possible that overweight or somewhat obese people are less likely to die because they, or their doctors, have identified other conditions associated with weight gain, like high cholesterol or diabetes.

“You’re more likely to be in your doctor’s office and more likely to be treated,” said Dr. Robert Eckel, a past president of the American Heart Association and a professor at University of Colorado.

Some experts said fat could be protective in some cases, although that is unproven and debated. The study did find that people 65 and over had no greater mortality risk even at high obesity.

“There’s something about extra body fat when you’re older that is providing some reserve,” Dr. Eckel said.

And studies on specific illnesses, like heart and kidney disease, have found an “obesity paradox,” that heavier patients are less likely to die.

Still, death is not everything. Even if “being overweight doesn’t increase your risk of dying,” Dr. Klein said, it “does increase your risk of having diabetes” or other conditions.

Ultimately, said the study’s lead author, Katherine Flegal, a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “the best weight might depend on the situation you’re in.”

Take the perfect woman, Elsie Scheel, in whose “physical makeup there is not a single defect,” the Times article said.

This woman who “has never been ill and doesn’t know what fear is” loved sports and didn’t consume candy, coffee or tea. But she also ate only three meals every two days, and loved beefsteak.

Maybe such seeming contradictions made sense against the societal inconsistencies of that time. After all, her post-college plans involved tilling her father’s farm, but “if she were a man, she would study mechanical engineering.”

Read More..

Tough decisions await new Tribune Co. board

When the new seven-member Tribune Co. board officially convenes for the first time in the next few weeks, the group of media and entertainment executives will name the company's executive officers. Then comes the bigger job of assessing a diverse portfolio of broadcasting and publishing assets, with an eye toward maximizing the value of the Chicago-based media company.

Whether that means buying, selling or keeping the company intact is a story that will begin to unfold in 2013. But insiders say the new owners — senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management; Angelo, Gordon & Co.; and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — won't be in a rush to make those decisions after a contentious four-year journey through Chapter 11 bankruptcy left the reorganized company in strong financial shape.

"We're really looking forward to the opportunities and the possibilities with this asset base, with over $11 billion in debt removed from the balance sheet," said Ken Liang, a managing director at Oaktree and a member of the new board.

Tribune Co. plunged into bankruptcy in December 2008, saddled with $13 billion in debt from real estate investor Sam Zell's heavily leveraged buyout one year earlier. It emerged from bankruptcy Monday, relatively debt-free and generating cash.

The company owns 23 television stations, including WGN-Ch. 9; national cable channel WGN America; eight daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune; and other media assets, all of which the reorganization plan valued at $4.5 billion after cash distributions and new financing.

Tribune Co.'s biggest challenge has been declining revenue and cash flow as the advertisers that sustained it through the years defected to digital media alternatives. But 2012 was a slight improvement, likely boosted in part by election year ad spending in the company's broadcasting unit.

Data released Monday by the company showed that after several years of revenue declines, including a 3 percent drop to $3.1 billion in 2011, sales for the first three quarters of 2012 were flat at $2.3 billion compared with the same period a year earlier. Cash flow was even better: After dropping 12 percent in 2011 to about $370 million, cash flow increased 17 percent during the first three quarters of 2012, to $240 million.

Los Angeles-based investment firm Oaktree is the largest equity owner, with 23 percent of the company. All of Oaktree's distressed-debt holdings have a 10-year investment window, though the average is three or four years, executives said. That time frame usually includes an operating phase, which is where Tribune Co. now stands.

Some experts expect that phase to be relatively brief.

"I think they are temporary owners," said Marshall Sonenshine, chairman of New York banking firm Sonenshine Partners and a professor at Columbia University Business School. "They're not really there to be long-term shareholders of media assets."

While eventually selling the assets is part of Oaktree's distressed-debt investment strategy, it doesn't preclude a longer run, including strengthening the company through strategic acquisitions, Liang said. And with Tribune Co.'s balance sheet cleaned up, the timing of any asset sales will be at their discretion.

The new board also includes Tribune Co. CEO Eddy Hartenstein; Ross Levinsohn, who recently left as interim chief executive of Yahoo Inc.; Craig Jacobson, an entertainment lawyer; Peter Murphy, a former strategy executive at Walt Disney Co. and Caesars Entertainment; Bruce Karsh, Oaktree's president; and Peter Liguori, a former top television executive at Fox and Discovery, who is expected to be named CEO of Tribune Co.

The makeup of the board and the expected choice of Liguori as CEO suggests that broadcasting will be the operational focus for Tribune Co., according to insiders and media analysts. Priorities are expected to include developing WGN America, which lags cable networks such as FX and TBS in revenue, ratings and cash flow, analysts said.

"It's clear that, in a sense, we have a new Tribune media company, and it's going in a direction that many people thought it would be going," said media analyst Ken Doctor. "It makes the company entertainment leaning versus news leaning."

Meanwhile, in the face of digital competition and sagging industry revenue, Tribune Co.'s newspaper holdings have declined to $623 million in total value, according to financial adviser Lazard. While some analysts expect the newspapers to be bundled and delivered to an assortment of potential new owners — everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Warren Buffett has expressed interest in acquiring one or more of the nameplates — they are still profitable and may remain in the Tribune Co. fold for some time, according to insiders.

Tribune reporters Michael Oneal and Becky Yerak contributed.

rchannick@tribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick

Read More..