Tribune restructures media services unit

CHICAGO — Tribune Co., the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other daily newspapers, announced a restructuring of its Tribune Media Services group on Monday.

Changes include the departure of the group's president and CEO, David Williams.

The entertainment products division of Tribune Media Services, which provides a TV, movie and celebrity database to thousands of companies, will operate as a standalone business within Tribune Co.

The news and features part of TMS, which includes comic strips, puzzles and such columnists as Dave Barry and Andy Rooney, will be integrated into Tribune's publishing division under Walter Mahoney, currently senior vice president of McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, a syndicator of content to print and online customers.

Williams will serve as a consultant during the reorganization.

The move comes about a month after Tribune promoted Los Angeles Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein to be CEO, following the resignation of Randy Michaels in October after complaints about raunchy behavior that occurred under his watch.

Along with daily newspapers including The (Baltimore) Sun, Tribune operates 23 television stations, the WGN America cable network and Chicago's WGN-AM.

Tribune Co. has been under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since December 2008. Real estate mogul Sam Zell led a buyout of the company for $8.2 billion in late 2007. That deal saddled the company with more debt than it could handle as revenue fell because of a weak economy and a shift in advertising to cheaper alternatives on the Internet.