Buyouts are headline news at Tribune

Tribune Publishing, the parent company of the Chicago Tribune and the struggling New York Daily News, is offering voluntary buyouts to employees with eight or more years of service, it announced on Monday.

“Although our digital successes provide good momentum, we continue to face industry-wide revenue challenges,” Tim Knight, president and CEO of Tribune Publishing, said in an e-mail to employees at all nine Tribune newspapers.

In addition to the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, Tribune owns the The Baltimore Sun, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Hartford Courant, The Virginian-Pilot, the Orlando Sentinel, the Daily Press, which covers communities in Virginia, and The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.

Tribune was left on the sidelines last year when New Media Investment Group, the parent of GateHouse Media, acquired the larger Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, for $1.3 billion. The Gannett name was maintained as the name of the new company, which is now far and away the biggest newspaper publisher in the business.

In his e-mail to employees, Knight said that while the company’s print titles and distribution business still make up “a significant amount of our revenue,” sales have been declining. That is forcing cost cuts, including in “real estate and outside services as well as all other non-employee related costs.”

“Further, to reduce expenses and avoid turning to company-wide reductions of the workforce as a last resort, the company is offering this voluntary separation incentive plan to all eligible employees with eight or more years of company service,” Knight said.

The terms of the severance were not revealed. Knight said details would be forthcoming to eligible employees later Monday afternoon.