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Top LA Times, Chicago Tribune Exec Pays Himself $15 Million in Christmas Eve Surprise
The chairman of the company that owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News has awarded himself $15 million in consulting contracts for the publishing conglomerate, according to an SEC filing.
The document, which was filed on Friday afternoon ahead of the Christmas break, provides Merrick Media, the consulting firm owned by tronc Chairman Michael Ferro, with a three-year contract at $5 million per year to provide certain management expertise and technical services.
The contract provides for payment on the first of the year. The document offers no other detail on what those consulting services might entail. However, it notes that Ferros private jet travel will now be covered by Merrick Media.
Ferros private travel was previously under fire for costing the L.A. Timems $4.6 million in 2016 and 2017.
The contract was immediately criticized by the union that is seeking to win approval from Los Angeles Times newsroom employees in a vote on January 4. A posting by the L.A.
Times guild over the weekend decried Ferros use of a private jet in 2016 an act of plundering [that] cost Tronc -- and its newsrooms -- $4.6 million between February 2016 and last September..
The guild went on to say: Ferro is now free to spend nearly twice that amount per year on the jet or anything else he desires. And he wont have to break out the travel expenses on future SEC filings..
Tronc bought the New York Daily News earlier this year, a move to grow the conglomerates publishing base, but advertising revenue continued to plunge - down 14% year over year in the third quarter of 2017.
Total revenues for third quarter 2017 decreased 6. 1 million, compared to $378. 2 million for third quarter 2016.
Self-serving management moves is not new at tronc, which now trades at about $18 per share, up from about $14 a year ago. As TheWrap reported earlier this year, the company hired Ross Levinsohn to be publisher of the L.A.
Times, a recommendation that management followed from a $600,000 consultant who turned out to be none other than Levinsohn himself.