Charles and David Koch are no longer contemplating a purchase of the Tribune Company’s chain of newspapers, a spokeswoman for the billionaire industrialists said on Thursday.
The spokeswoman, Melissa Cohlmia, affirmed a report by the conservative news Web site The Daily Caller that said Koch Industries — where Charles is chairman and chief executive and David is an executive vice president — had concluded that the acquisition was “not economically viable.”
But other acquisitions in the media industry might be: “Koch continues to have an interest in the media business, and we’re exploring a broad range of opportunities where we think we can add value,” Ms. Cohlmia said in a statement. She declined to elaborate.
The notion that the Kochs could acquire Tribune’s newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, arose nearly six months ago. It was divisive at the time, prompting protests by liberal groups and media reform groups that cast the Kochs — who are prominent donors to libertarian causes and Republican politicians — as threats to independent journalism.
The ensuing controversy drew unwanted attention to the Kochs, who had previously shown just a passing interest in media investments.
Tribune declined to comment on the news reports about the Kochs on Thursday, but a spokesman said the company’s plan to spin off the newspapers was proceeding apace. That plan was announced in July as an alternative to selling the newspapers right away, though a sale of all or some of the papers could still happen.
In the spinoff, Tribune-owned Web sites like CareerBuilder.com will be separated from the print publications, potentially removing an important stream of advertising revenue for the papers. The Daily Caller’s report quoted an anonymous source as saying that the newspaper acquisition would not be palatable for the Kochs without that Web revenue.
Ms. Cohlmia said that “In terms of the Tribune, the Daily Caller story is accurate.”
The Daily Caller’s source also said Koch Industries’ interest in the newspapers faded “a couple months” ago. In July, when Charles Kochwas interviewed by The Wichita Eagle, the local newspaper where Koch Industries is based in Kansas, he said a bid for Tribune’s newspapers was possible — “it’s not on the front burner, but it’s possible.”
“There are tremendous changes going on in media, in taking media as a whole, all forms of communication. We’re back at square one analyzing where is the most change, where are the best opportunities for new entrants to come in and add value. And so newspapers are one, but there are all sorts of others. There’s the Internet, there’s TV. There’s entertainment. And so we don’t know where we’ll end up on that,” Mr. Koch told the paper.
A version of this article appears in print on August 23, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Kochs No Longer Interested In Bhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/business/media/kochs-no-longer-interested-in-buying-tribune-papers.html?_r=0uying Tribune Papers.
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