JACK WELCH AND THE LOCAL OWNERS TREND

Jack Wells interest for the Boston Globe is driving nuts the people of the NYTC.

The Wall Stret Journal reports today about the possible sale of the Boston Globe:

Ben Taylor, the former Globe publisher whose family sold the Globe to the New York Times, has long been unhappy with the performance of the business and has talked about wanting to buy it back, according to a person close to the situation. Mr. Taylor didn't return a call for comment.

The local interest resonates in a climate when a major change in newspaper ownership appears to be in the offing all over the country. Private equity concerns have been actively looking at newspaper properties, but deep-pocketed citizens who made their money elsewhere have also been circling and, in some cases, buying.

But the most high-profile example of a local owner buying up the hometown paper has already run into difficulty. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Mr. Tierney last week said he would need to slash jobs and aggressively cut costs in order to pay off his bank loans.

"We have to come to a basic reality that it's not 1976, it's 2006, so rules like when I send an ad-sales person to entertain a client at the Phillies game, I can't pay him time and a half for that," said Mr. Tierney, who says he is determined to cut the paper's labor costs. "I can't put a bubble around this building and make it like it was 1976, because it's not. And so we just need to be rational about it and do what we need to do to compete."

In other cities, local business people have expressed interest in a variety of newspapers. David Geffen, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle have signaled their desire to own Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times; Frank Zarb has privately expressed interest in putting together a group to buy Tribune's Newsday. Local groups in Hartford and Baltimore have also expressed interest in Tribune's Hartford Courant and Baltimore Sun.

If some of these investors begin acting on their aspirations, it could mean a major transformation in the ownership structure of a unique industry with its own particular demands. Moguls like Hearst, Scripps and Pulitzer built dynasties initially, and then newspaper companies began to assume two models. One was the paper controlled by family trusts like those of the Sulzbergers (New York Times), Grahams (Washington Post), Chandlers (Los Angeles Times) and Bancrofts (The Wall Street Journal), with some public money.

But this model is breaking apart as later generations get frustrated with the returns.