Tribune revenues down

The November numbers show another huge drop in classified advertising, what's become of the bane of the newspaper business. Within that category, real estate plunged 39.8 percent, with the biggest declines in L.A., Chicago and Florida (the company doesn’t break out specific properties). Help-wanted ad revenue was down 28.4 percent and automotive was down 7.6 percent. All told, the parent of the LAT and KTLA (Channel 5) had a 3.3 percent decrease in revenue; on the publishing side, ad revenue was down 4.9 percent. Meanwhile, operating expenses were down 5.2 percent because of lower costs of newsprint and ink, compensation and promotion. Tribune still plans to close its $8.2-billion buyout by the end of the year, and there are all kinds of rumors about what might happen once the deal is done. Here's the LAT story. We're hearing much the same rumbles at the WSJ - soon to be under the control of Rupert Murdoch (here's a NYT story this morning about how Murdoch has already moved in). Among the most likely changes: the elimination of the Marketplace section sometime early next year.