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Daily News' Zuckerman still trying to buy Newsday

BY DANIEL WAGNER | daniel.wagner@newsday.com

March 29, 2008

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Rupert Murdoch isn't the only newspaper mogul who is aggressively pursuing a purchase of Newsday, sources said Friday. Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is still in the game.

Two sources close to Zuckerman confirmed that, as of Thursday, he was aggressively preparing a bid for Newsday. His representatives have declined to comment about a potential bid.

A former Newsday executive with knowledge of the situation said Zuckerman is "very much in this" and had been "looking very hard" at Newsday " ... for a very long time."

Meanwhile, even though Newsday has excess printing capacity, a group of Newsday production officials last week inspected dormant presses at an Edison, N.J. plant that The New York Times is process of closing, a union source said yesterday.

The information follows reports last week that Tribune Co., Newsday's cash-strapped corporate parent, had sought bids on Newsday from potential buyers. They include Zuckerman; Murdoch's News Corp., which owns the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal; and the Dolan family, which controls Cablevision Systems Corp. and News 12, a cable channel that covers Long Island news.

Analysts have said Murdoch could save money by buying Newsday and combining the production and back-office operations of Newsday, the Post and The Wall Street Journal. A News Corp. spokesman would not comment on the deal.

The Post is printed at a South Bronx plant that was built in 2001 at a cost of about $250 million. Several sources have said the plant is at capacity. News Corp. did not reply to requests for comment.

The Daily News last month announced plans for a $100-million upgrade of its printing presses, with the first new press scheduled to go online in the summer of next year. Those presses will give the News the ability to print magazine-quality color on every page -- far surpassing the standards of most current presses.

The Post and the News, New York's two major daily tabloids, have a long-running rivalry that plays out both in their pages and in their battle to post higher circulation numbers.

Analysts also have noted that a purchase by Cablevision would not present the same potential regulatory hurdles as a purchase by News Corp. because Cablevision's local news outlet is cable-based and therefore not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. News Corp. owns Fox 5.

A spokeswoman for Bethpage-based Cablevision Systems said she knew nothing about a potential bid for Newsday.

One concern Tribune leadership would face in selling Newsday is that the sale could incur capital gains taxes. There are several configurations under which Tribune could derive cash from the sale without the tax liability, including a stock swap with News Corp.

Newsday and Tribune officials declined to comment on the possible sale of Newsday.