Not long after reports that the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News were seeking a bailout from our beloved spendaholic Dem Governor Ed Rendell we now hear that the papers are filing for Bankruptcy:
Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, filed for bankruptcy protection today in a bid to restructure its $390 million in debt load.
The company, bought by a group of Philadelphia-area investors for $562 million in 2006, said the voluntary Chapter 11 filing would not interrupt its daily operations.
“This restructuring is focused solely on our debt, not our operations,” chief executive officer Brian P. Tierney, who led the group that provided about $150 million of the purchase price three years ago, said in a news release.
Gee, can anybody guess what the source of these papers’ problems is? Yup, nobody wants to pay for their fishwrap:
The financial burden from an advertising downturn, rising costs for newsprint, and the migration of readers to the Internet caused Philadelphia Newspapers to fall out of compliance with its loan agreements last year. The same conditions have devastated the broadcast industry.
Yea… that’s newspapers-who-are-failing talk for nobody is buying our paper so we can’t pay our bills. Nobody should be shocked by this. But I think the real question here is how long until Rendell comes a runnin’ cash in hand?
UPDATE: Hello to everyone from Patterico’s! Be sure to catch The College Politico at CPAC this year.