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Mid-Year Media Review
June 19, 2001

Dennis FitzSimons
We never get tired of that tape, and hope you don't either!

Good afternoon. We're happy to be here to give you an update on business. First, let me tell you who you'll be hearing from today. I'm Dennis FitzSimons, executive vice president of Tribune. Jack Fuller, president of Tribune Publishing and Don Grenesko, our senior VP and CFO, are here as well. David Hiller, president of Tribune Interactive, and Ruthellyn Musil, our VP of corporate relations, are also with us.

A year ago, prior to this conference, we had just closed the largest merger in newspaper industry history.

Since then, we've accomplished what we said we would:

• We completed the integration of two great companies; · We divested non-strategic businesses at premium prices, yielding more than $2 billion after-tax; · We repurchased nearly 27 million shares of stock; · We kept our debt at a conservative two-times cash flow; · And we maintained our strong "A" bond rating.
  
• Directly related to the merger, in 2001, we will generate incremental cash flow of about $175 million by realizing $40 million of new revenue and reducing costs by $145 million.
  
• We've expanded our national presence and significantly improved our position in some of the most important markets in the country. Our unique positions in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are key because that's where the money is.
  
• Those three cities alone not only have 16% of the country's population, but also are home to 25% of the nation's households with annual disposable incomes of more than $150,000. And believe it or not, the Gross Domestic Product of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, is about $1 trillion-larger than all but six countries in the world.

All of this creates value for our shareholders.

As you've heard from a number of prior presenters, the advertising environment is not great right now. That's given us an even greater sense of urgency on moves that will put us in a leaner and stronger position when the economy rebounds. But before I cover those steps, here's how we see our overall position now.

First, in a fragmenting media environment, our television stations, newspapers and Web sites are more valuable than ever. Tribune is the nation's fourth largest television group operator, the third largest newspaper company plus we have a strong and growing presence on the Internet. And as the only media company with television/newspaper combinations in the top 3 markets, we have some unique advantages.

Second, Tribune is a strong cash generator. We'll produce about $1.5 billion of operating cash flow this year and our free cash flow will still be in the range of $600 million because of tight controls on cap-ex and other investments. This gives us the financial strength and flexibility that will allow us to be a consolidator when we see worthwhile acquisition opportunities.

At prior downturns we've used this point in the economic cycle as an opportunity. Back in 1991, Tribune's television group consisted of six stations. We were in an advertising recession and over-the-air television was out of favor with investors. But we believed in the strength of the business going forward, and we used that downturn to add some very important markets to our group that helped fuel our growth in the 1990s. We're looking toward similar opportunities this time around.

We think it makes sense to add to our group. Media fragmentation isn't reducing advertisers' need to reach consumers with effective selling messages; it's increasing that need. In particular, marketers must reach consumers in major markets. And that's where Tribune media franchises are located.

Our 22 television stations, 11 newspapers and more than 50 Web sites put us in a position to reach more than 80% of the households in the U.S., something few competitors can match.

These are great businesses on their own, but we give ourselves and our clients an added benefit when they work together to enhance content, cross promote and cross sell.

Tribune Media Net, our national advertising sales organization, was set up to serve our customers' overall marketing needs. By packaging our much larger group of media assets, we're generating new, incremental revenue. It was one of the strategies behind our merger with Times Mirror, and it's working even in this slow advertising environment. So far in 2001, we have $14 million booked and have been successful in all the areas we saw as opportunities:

• Taking share from National print, like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today;
• Using the strength of L.A. and Chicago to drive revenue into our mid-tier newspapers;
• And selling our cross-media packages, with 19 deals in place so far this year.

The most significant is our recent breakthrough partnership with Harris Bank that combines content and promotion in a multi-year, multi-million dollar program in which all of our Chicago media businesses are involved.

By packaging multiple media, we can help advertisers meet key marketing objectives. This allows us to go beyond their advertising budgets and tap into dollars allocated to marketing and promotion. The result is incremental revenue and greater share for us.

Here's how it will work for Harris:

• Harris will have a fixed, premium ad position in the Tuesday "Your Money" section of the Chicago Tribune;
  
• CLTV, Tribune's cable television news channel in Chicago, will adapt business-related content from the newspaper into a weekly, 30-minute business show-sponsored by Harris;
  
• Elements of the CLTV program will be re-edited as features airing on WGN-TV and WGN Radio, all sponsored by Harris;
  
• And Harris ads will appear on chicagotribune.com and in Exito, our Spanish-language weekly.

The most obvious result of this program is the incremental revenue, and believe me, in this environment, we're pleased to get it.

There are some other benefits, too. Don't underestimate the value of cross-promotion. We have some great examples here in New York, with Newsday and WPIX. WPIX has used premium placement ads in Newsday to build ratings on Long Island in Nassau and Suffolk counties. This cross promotion has had a big impact, especially in prime-time ratings. Overall, WPIX's prime-time share in Long Island doubled, from a 5 share in May 2000, before the cross-promotion began, to a 10 share in May 2001.

Of course, cross-promotion works the other way as well. WPIX regularly references Newsday and its Web site on its morning and 10 p.m. news. That helps Newsday extend its brand to younger viewers at no cost.

Working together brings additional viewers to our TV stations and new readers to our newspapers.

Now, let's take a quick look at each of our operating divisions. I'll start with broadcasting and interactive and then Jack will cover publishing.

In broadcasting, we outpaced the industry in almost every respect in 2000. That created some very tough comparisons for the first six months of this year. In the first half of 2000, revenue was up 12% and cash flow increased 21%. As comparisons ease, we should have a better second half.

We're also hopeful that the economy will improve, but in any case, we have a number of positives that should help us outpace our peers.

Our investment in The WB Network continues to pay off. In the just completed May sweeps, the network showed outstanding growth. Ratings for adults 18-34 were up 18% over last year and in the 18-49 category, ratings increased 13% year-over-year.

The "target audience" story is working for us. Because Tribune stations are primarily The WB as well as Fox, we have the demos that are most in-demand by advertisers and the ones that are hardest to reach-the 18-34 year olds. The average age for WB viewers is 29; Fox viewers' average age is 35. This compares with average ages of 45 for NBC, 47 for ABC and and 52 for CBS.

Many of life's "firsts" happen between the ages of 18-34: first car, first marriage, first home, first baby. It's when consumers develop brand loyalty, so advertisers are increasingly viewing this group as a must-reach demographic.

The WB's fall lineup should continue the momentum among young viewers, especially with shows like "Smallville," which is about Superman's teen-years. It's a great Warner Bros. franchise.

Shows like "Smallville" are one reason advertiser reaction to The WB's fall line-up has been strong. We've gotten some questions on not renewing "Buffy" for The WB. We're sorry to see the show leave after 5 years on The WB, but the decision made sense. It was a great show for us but its ratings in key demos were softening. So we walked away from a $100 million, 2-year commitment that was a likely money loser. It's similar to our decision to let "Seinfeld" go in New York and L.A., when its cost rose beyond its ratings and revenue-producing potential.

Our "Seinfeld" replacement starting this fall in many markets is "Everybody Loves Raymond." It's the #2 sitcom on network TV, behind "Friends," which we already have on all of our stations. And the number 3 sitcom is "Will and Grace," which will begin airing in the Fall of 2002. At that point, we'll have the top three network TV sitcoms in first-run syndication. We expect "Everybody Loves Raymond" to do very well with our younger audience.

Another growth opportunity for us is our cable assets. We've recently taken control of WGN-cable's national distribution to cable operators. Prior to this, Gemstar-TV Guide handled distribution. This does a couple of things. First, we control our own destiny. We're currently at 52 million homes, and now have a clear path to improve our national reach, our audience delivery and our ad revenue. Plus, we are generating a second revenue stream from superstation sub fees.

Another significant part of the growing value we have in our cable assets is our 31% interest in the TV Food Network and our 9% interest in The Golf Channel. Both of these assets are well-managed and have enormous potential. Just recently, Comcast bought Fox's interest in the Golf Channel; that valued the network at $1.2 billion.

Moving to our entertainment sector, Tribune Entertainment has quietly become a significant distributor of first-run programming. This fall we will have nine series in distribution: 7 weeklies and 2 M-F strip programs. Tribune Entertainment's "Andromeda" finished the season as the #1 action hour in syndication, after launching just last September. "Andromeda" is our third consecutive hit show and we've got another strong one set to debut this fall. "Mutant X," produced in association with Marvel Media, has already been sold in 93% of the U.S. It's from the creators of the popular X-Men comics and movie, and we think it will appeal to the same viewers who enjoy our other successful sci-fi shows.

Tribune Entertainment has created a great, cost-effective model that's profitable from day one and delivers first-run weekend programming to our station group at no cash cost. Now, "Earth: Final Conflict" has been sold to the Sci-Fi Channel for back-end reruns. "Andromeda" will be in its second year next year, and is on the same track, with even better ratings.

We're also building other revenue streams at TEC. We recently took over backroom functions for Hearst Entertainment, and we're handling national advertising sales for NBC Entertainment's new syndicated version of the network hit, "Weakest Link." There's also Tribune Studios, a digital program production facility on the KTLA lot, still another profit center.

Finally, the first-place Cubs are doing a great job of boosting WGN-TV's ratings. The Cubs are an important part of our programming strategy for WGN-TV, WGN-Superstation, and WGN-Radio.

On a recent Sunday, WGN averaged a 13/14 rating in Chicago for the Cubs vs. the Sox.

Moving to Tribune Interactive, we're having a solid year, with revenues up nearly 30 percent year-to-date on a pro forma basis. Interactive's strategic priorities are to grow classified revenues and to scale operations so that the division will be profitable by the end of 2002.

Tribune's Internet business is advantaged because of their relationship with our existing publishing and broadcasting businesses. We have the infrastructure already in place to create great content, move it efficiently to our Web sites, and we use our mass media promotional strength to drive web users to our sites.

And because our publishers are responsible for the financial results of our newspaper Web sites, which deliver the majority of revenue, we think we have the accountability for promotion, content production and expense control in the right place.

We also have an aggressive Internet strategy in place to capture classified advertising in both print and online. Jack will have a lot to say about that in just a minute.

A number of other initiatives should accelerate advertising growth in the future. All are based on meeting the changing needs of our customers. Together they represent real revenue -- revenue that we would not be getting otherwise. Right now, it's muted by the slowing economy. But we know that will change. And when it does, Tribune will be out ahead, benefiting because of the size and scale we've created.

So here's Jack to tell you more about our opportunities in publishing.

Jack Fuller
President/Tribune Publishing

Thanks, Dennis. When I talked to you at this conference last year, the integration was well underway and moving quickly. I knew there were many opportunities ahead. But now it's done, and had I known then what I know now, I'd have been even more confident about what our bigger company can do.

Our newspapers are very valuable franchises, and our publishing group generates over $4 billion in revenue annually. Many of our newspapers post among the highest cash flow margins in the industry; others will get there. In the meantime, we are responding to this downturn by accelerating cost containment aggressively. This will mean more and faster margin improvement when top-line growth rebounds.

For example, in the first quarter, cash expenses other than newsprint were down 1%. For the full year, we expect that to decrease further, to the low single digits on a pro forma basis.

One of the ways we have been controlling costs is by managing staffing levels down through selective reductions, by not filling open positions and by outsourcing certain functions. Moreover, the voluntary retirement program that we just announced will accelerate the reductions, so by the end of this year, our group will have reduced staff by 10% since closing the merger with Times Mirror. This equates to over 2,000 FTEs.

Today I want to focus on three other areas:

• How we intend to grow revenue faster than the industry;
• What we are doing to respond to changes in the classified advertising market;
• And why scale improves our group operations.

Today, with 11 newspapers, Tribune Publishing reaches 5 million readers each day. We publish one-and-a-half billion newspapers annually which translates into roughly 130 billion page views in a year. Our papers are among the very best in the country journalistically, and they are getting better. They are leaders in their communities, tough-minded and bold.

Let me highlight a few of the areas where we think we have real revenue growth opportunities. We'll look first at retail, which represents a little more than 40% of our ad revenue.

We've long recognized that improving our share of retail preprint advertising is one of the most critical aspects of long-term revenue growth and profitability. Preprints are among the fastest growing advertising segments for most newspapers, including ours. The market is expected to continue to grow as advertisers look for more targeted distribution for their ads, shorter deadlines and the flexibility to run a wide variety of shapes, sizes and paper stocks. At our papers, we are making the right investments to grow this high-margin business.

We've had tremendous success in Chicago and elsewhere and we believe that we can transfer these growth strategies to the Los Angeles Times. Here's some background:

• ADVO's overall revenue has grown at an average of 6% annually over the past 10 years.
  
• At the Chicago Tribune, preprint revenue growth has doubled that, growing at 12% annually over the same 10 years.
  
• In Chicago, we have about a 2/3 market share compared to only 1/3 in L.A., which is a $350 million market. We know we can get a lot more out of L.A., and that is just what we plan to do.

Market research shows that consumers prefer to receive preprints through the delivery of the newspaper. This is a clear competitive advantage for us and we are taking advantage of it in our markets. In Los Angeles, we have begun work on a new packaging and distribution facility that will allow us to increase zoning capabilities while improving the reliability, accuracy of our delivery and our deadline. In Chicago, we are completing a three-year project that will enhance our preprint capabilities. This will allow us to handle more volume while delivering the increased zoning that preprint advertisers want. Between Chicago and L.A., we think we can add about $75 million to preprint revenue over the next several years.

Preprints are not our only retail opportunity, because as retailers consolidate and become more national in scope, their need to reach the top 3 markets of New York, L.A. and Chicago increases. And we are uniquely positioned to meet their needs.

Just a couple of examples:

• 20% of Target Corp. sales are in the top 3 markets.
• 26% of Albertson sales are in L.A. and Chicago .

Yes, consolidation in the retail sector can be a threat, but we're prepared to turn it to our advantage.

Another area of opportunity is in national advertising, which has been a real bright spot for newspapers over the past couple of years. We've seen growth rates, particularly in Chicago, where, over five years, growth has averaged just over 10% compounded.

In the first quarter of 2001, Los Angeles and Chicago have increased market share in a number of categories.

Dennis mentioned the revenue already booked this year by Tribune Media Net. Clearly, the strategy is working. Dave Murphy and his staff are doing exactly what they said they would. We now have incremental national ad revenue in our top 3 newspapers, incremental national ad dollars in our mid-market newspapers, and new revenue from cross-media advertising packages.

Let me repeat - we have been successful in generating incremental revenue from cross-media sales. A great example of this was our recent partnership with Harris Bank that Dennis mentioned earlier.

So Tribune Media Net is already driving new business today in a very tough advertising environment. And when the economy turns, it is going to be a real engine of growth.

Finally, let's talk about classified, where the question is whether the revenue declines are due to the economy or the Internet. The current slowdown very clearly tracks the 1990-1991 recession, so the story in classifieds is clearly still the economy.

In the auto and real estate categories, we think that cars.com and apartments.com have positioned us well relative to other local newspaper, niche publishing and online competitors.

Now let's talk about help wanted, where we have long understood that the effect of the Internet on our business would be the greatest. Our investments in CareerBuilder and BrassRing have positioned us well to take advantage of the change in this market. But the majority of the falloff in newspaper help wanted advertising that we're seeing now can be attributed to the economy.

The current trends in help wanted are quite consistent with what we saw in the economic downturn in the early 1990s.

Internet job boards like Monster, HotJobs and Headhunter are also feeling the effects of the downturn. In the first quarter, Headhunter was down and the growth at HotJobs and Monster has flattened out -- and Monster is actually laying off people. At the same time, our own CareerBuilder network is performing well in the face of this significant downturn. In the first quarter, our quarter-over-quarter growth was 15% and we expect full-year revenue to be up 100 percent from last year.

As an aside, the interesting thing about this downturn is that our advertisers are getting great results out of the newspaper. They are also responding very positively to the CareerBuilder product and its unique network approach. This bodes very well for us in offering a next generation of blended print and online products that Monster can't match.

The important question is what happens when we come out of this downturn? So let's talk for a moment about how we see the future of recruitment advertising.

We expect labor markets to continue to be highly competitive, with employers wanting to fill open positions as quickly and cost effectively as possible. To meet all their hiring needs effectively, employers are going to require multiple channels, including both print and online. Human capital management is still primarily a local proposition, which is our strength. We have more job listings than Monster in each of our markets. In some markets, we lead by a factor of two or three. For example, Newsday, on Long Island, has four job listings for every one on Monster. And we now know that online users overwhelmingly value local jobs listings rather than national job listings.

Over the coming year, you will also see us creating custom print and online solutions for local market employers. We have had tremendous success capturing share and margin by building these types of custom media plans in the auto category over the last five years and are now beginning to take a similar approach in recruitment.

A good example of this is in Chicago, where we just created a high value package for Robert Morris College, which included:

• Traditional display advertising in our daily and Sunday help wanted sections;
• Color display ads in sections outside of classified;
• Ads in special sections;
• Three types of job fairs;
• And an annual CareerBuilder membership that included job postings and resume database access.

In challenging economic times, this client quadrupled their Chicago Tribune investment from $40,000 to $165,000 because we created an integrated approach they felt would deliver better candidates than any other print or online solution. You're going to see a lot more of this.

The last point I want to make today is that when we bought Times Mirror, we believed that scale would make us stronger, and it has.

We have improved our newsprint cost structure, in both pricing and consumption. While it's true that newsprint manufacturing is consolidating, our position as the second-largest consumer of newsprint in North America gives us significant purchasing power. Our current pricing is 6% lower than industry averages and tracks with what we built into our Times Mirror acquisition model. And we are doing all we can to do to drive it even lower.

Newsprint consumption also is lower, for several reasons not related to the slower ad environment. As we have focused on improving the productivity of our printing facilities we have reduced newsprint waste. Overall waste has been reduced by 8% so far this year and we are on track to save $6 million this year. And we are confident there is room for more improvement. Web-width reduction also has a positive impact on consumption. All but three of our broadsheet newspapers have converted to the 50-inch web. The others will be completed over the next year. On a full-year basis, overall consumption will decline by about 9%, or 90,000 tons.

Looking to the future, we're excited by the possibilities provided by moving all 11 newspapers to common advertising and circulation systems. We are also looking at a similar thing for circulation and database marketing systems. Not only do common systems present opportunities to reduce costs but they also will allow us to mine national subscriber and advertiser data efficiently. Robust database marketing capabilities will result in additional revenues.

As I told you last year, we expected to find significant cost savings at the L.A. Times, and we have. John Puerner and his new senior management team in L.A. have improved the quality and focus of the newspaper and reduced the cost base by $80 million on an annualized basis. Cost reductions have been achieved by eliminating unprofitable circulation, reorganizing news operations and certain business functions, and increasing the productivity of printing and distribution operations. In addition, the increase in single copy price will result in $15 million of new revenue. All in all we are 12-18 months ahead of schedule for change at the Los Angeles Times and we are positioned to see operating margins on par with industry averages once the advertising picture improves. When the economy recovers, we are confident that margins in L.A. will soar.

The tough economy has overshadowed the many things we've accomplished in the past year. The good news has been masked by the very difficult advertising environment. We'll go about our business until it passes. But when it does, our company's terrific assets-among them newspapers that demonstrate daily that great journalism is great business-will be more profitable and valuable than ever.

And now here's Don to recap our financials.

Don Grenesko
Senior Vice President/Finance and Administration

Last Thursday, we revised earnings guidance for second quarter

• Now expecting reported EPS of about $.22 per share
• Cash EPS, excluding goodwill amortization of about $.40 per share

We haven't given guidance for the second half but expect easier comparisons

• Publishing operating profit second half 2000: -2% vs. +9% in first half
• Will have cycled through most of dot.com advertising comparisons by the second half of the year

In process of cutting expenses across company

• First quarter publishing cash expenses, excluding newsprint: -1%
• First quarter TV cash expenses: -6% · First quarter consolidated cash expenses: -3%
• We expect this pattern to continue through second half

Reduced capital expenditures and investments by $150 million

• Saves $4 million in interest expense for the year

Continuing our stock repurchase program to reduce shares outstanding by 1-2% per year

• YTD: repurchased 5.6 million shares at a cost of $255 million
• Expect to repurchase $450 - $500 million for the full year
  

Last Thursday, we also announced voluntary retirement program

• Reduce overall workforce by 3%, mainly in publishing
• Restructuring charge mainly in third quarter, part in second quarter
• Majority of funding for this program will come through excess pension assets
• Publishing group also expects to reduce their workforce by another 3% by year end through other initiatives

Q&A Session

Q. Discuss WGN Superstation and its distribution plans in a little more detail? The Chicago Cubs are having a banner year, any other drivers for distribution for WGN?

A. Now that we have full control of the sales efforts to the cable operators of WGN, we will be able to use our retransmission consent rights in negotiations with cable operators. Hopefully this will give them greater incentives to pick up WGN on a basic tier. There are also other possible areas of negotiation with cable operators. We're now in control of our own destiny. United Video, when it was part of Gemstar/TV Guide, wasn't getting the kind of focus for WGN that we needed in order to get additional distribution.

Q. Give more substance to the voluntary retirement program? Also more color about the accounting in the third quarter and the magnitude, if possible?

A. The program was offered to about 5% of our employees. We expect an acceptance rate in the 50% - 75% range. Haven't quantified yet, but expect saving to be substantial. By law, the employees who were offered the program have 45 days to consider it, so we won't know the acceptance levels until the end of July. So sometime in August, we'll be able to give you the full details of the program.

Q. Give us an update on June trends. Any sign of stabilization or improvement in the second half?

A. The first three weeks of June, in national and classified generally, and most particularly in help wanted, are firming up. The rate of decline has slowed appreciably, so we are cautiously optimistic. It the first time we've seen that this year. On the other hand, retail is softening somewhat. Retail was doing well comparatively. Sort of what you'd expect at this point in the cycle. Most importantly, the help trend, which has been resolutely downward for quite a few quarters is beginning to firm up a little bit.

Q. You sound interested in more television stations. Are you seeing any properties for sale or is the market quiet right now?

A. Yes, we are in the market for acquisitions. We'd like to expand our national footprint, increase our coverage and double up in markets where we can. We think with this slowdown and with deregulation on the horizon - possibly some changes in the ownership rules, not only broadcast/newspaper cross-ownership but possible loosening of the restrictions on duopoly - there may be opportunities. Right now, even though there are a number of highly leveraged television operators, I don't think there is a lot of activity going on right now. But I think if this slowdown were to last, I think there would be more activity. The exit premium by potential sellers seems to be, to us, still a little bit too high.

Q. With the Harris package, compare dollars and timeframe in that package with separate media buys by Harris in the Chicago market in the recent past?

A. Harris has not done much of anything recently in the Chicago market to enhance their brand, so most of this package is incremental.

Q. With the tax rebate checks coming out next month, have you put together a corporate-wide marketing program to attract marketing dollars or have you heard from merchants on how they might plan to bring in those checks?

A. We haven't heard from our retailers of their plans.

Q. On the television side, your comps are easier vs. typical television comps at other groups. Have you seen any evidence yet, that those could turn into better numbers?

A. In the second half, because our stations are either WB or Fox, we don't have any Olympics dollars or large political dollars in our comps because our stations are not big news or political advertising share stations. So that is a comp we don't have to go against in the back half. We've got a good situation. We've got "Everybody Loves Raymond" premiering this Fall, which I think is going to be very well sold. Also, we have favorable ratings on The WB going into the Fall. So we see ourselves picking up share in the second half along with those easing comps.

Q. Now that you've got some initial success under your belt, any potential size on Tribune Media Net looking out a couple of years. Think it could be a several hundred million dollar business for you?

A. In the projections that we made for the acquisition, we had growth projected of $45 - $50 million in the first year and $75 million in the second year. We are very encouraged that in a really rotten climate a new pitch has taken hold. What Dave Murphy, who runs Tribune Media Net, had to do was hire an entire sales staff, get them out on the road. Newspaper buying patterns don't just change overnight. So we had to get the pitch out there and then get orders and usually those orders are several months into the future. So we think he's done a very good job on that and now that the sales force is in place, and with some time, next year is going to look a lot better.

Q. Going back to the classified online area. Monster and its affiliated sites are tracking at a $1 billion run rate in 2002. In order to do that, they are spending $225 - $250 million in marketing. Can you get in that game without that kind of marketing commitment?

A. Unlike Monster, we can do a lot of marketing without spending significant dollars because we have the promotional power of our television stations and our newspapers. And we think we can capture and leverage the promotional power over time and plan to do so. That'll be the strategy. (Inaudible)... If you take the television inventory in our markets as well as cross-promotion with our Web properties, we have substantially lower customer/visitor acquisition costs than Monster and that fundamentally drives better economics over time.

Q. This year Tribune Media Net is 1% of total publishing revenue. Could this be 3%-5% of revenue looking out 3-5 years? Is the growth like $40M-$50M-$60M-$70M-$80M or more like $40M-$80M-$120M-$160M-$200M?

A. We initially thought $50M-$75M growth. Nothing we've seen that has changed our thinking, because what we've seen has been confirmatory that this is an idea that has some strength.

Q. Following up on your comment that "June was firming up a bit," wasn't June the first slowdown month last year in terms of advertising? You were doing 8%-10%, then in June you began doing 4%-5%? So the comps are easier and therefore June may just be a comp thing as opposed to a firming up?

A. That is slightly true. Comps are slightly easier in June than in May. But certainly in the help wanted area, they are not greatly easier in June than in May. The cycle operates that way. If the first three weeks of June turn out to hold as a pattern, it will be behaving exactly the way these cycles have behaved in the past. The rate of descent increases until it hits a point, then the rate of descent decreases until it reached even and then you start reaching positive numbers. And that happens over some number of quarters; that number is variable. Now, I'm talking about classified, particularly help wanted classified, which is a critical factor in our economic situation. What we're seeing in the first three weeks of June is that there is a significant reduction in the rate of descent. That's what happens as the cycle changes. Whether it holds up or not remains to be seen. On the broadcast side, June was the last big month we had and then, as we got into the third quarter, we saw things worsen as we got to September. Publishing total advertising in June of 2000 was up 3.1% over 1999. Then in July and August, it fell off to increases of 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively.

Q. Talk about the Times Mirror newspapers other than Los Angeles in terms of pricing and cost perspectives. You gave a margin target for L.A. Talk about other Times Mirror properties from a margin perspective.

A. Margins at the other papers were better, so the potential for margin improvement was more modest. We are having cost reductions and FTE reductions at the eastern Times Mirror newspapers as well as in L.A. and to some extent the original Tribune newspapers as well. The other Times Mirror newspapers continue to be remarkably well run. So the opportunity for coming in and changing their practices is less traumatic. A couple of newspapers had the same kind of forced circulation strategy that we found in L.A. and we've been able to turn that back to a more rational circulation strategy which will have some long-term effects financially for us. It was a very different situation at the eastern newspapers than in L.A.

Q. With "Earth: Final Conflict" being sold, will you have a "pop" in entertainment earnings in the third quarter because of that sale?

A. "Earth: Final Conflict" would not result in a big pop in the third quarter.

Q. With regard to retail advertising, do you have a lot of out-of-business sales to make up based on what has been happening in bankruptcies in your markets?

A. There hasn't been major consolidation in retail that we're worried about.

Q. There's been Bradley's that's probably hit Hartford. What about other accounts in other markets?

A. None that are new. All of them you've seen. Montgomery Ward was a big one, but that was a while back.

Q. What are the approximate run rates for BrassRing and CareerBuilder?

A. (Inaudible)... The back office résumé management candidate tracking is up double-digits year-over-year. We don't report those individual company revenues.

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