The parent company of the Orange County Register has picked a former newspaper publisher and wire service chairman to be its interim chief executive.
Burl Osborne, a director at Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc., was picked to lead the troubled media company.
Osborne, 71, was chairman of the Associated Press from 2002 to 2007 and publisher of the Dallas Morning News from 1986 to 2001.
He is chairman of the Belo Foundation, an endowment created by newspaper company Belo Corp., which owns the Dallas Morning News.
Osborne was tapped after extended deliberations by Freedom’s directors. He’s replacing current boss Scott Flanders, who said early this month that he’s leaving to take the top spot at Chicago’s Playboy Enterprises Inc.
Flanders leaves at the end of the month.
Osborne takes over a troubled operation. Like other newspaper companies, Freedom is struggling with declining advertising revenue and debt issues.
Freedom has yearly revenue of more than $600 million and also owns and runs TV stations and magazines.
Osborne faces tough negotiations to restructure the company’s $700 million debt next year.
Flanders spent the past year or so working with Freedom’s creditors as its financial results fell below terms initially agreed to with lenders.
In April, a group of lenders extended until Dec. 31 a deadline for the company to meet credit terms it technically defaulted on in September.
As part of the waiver, the company prepaid some principal payments due this year as well as an amendment fee.
There has been talk about Freedom considering bankruptcy, among other options.
“It is possible, but unlikely,” Flanders told the Business Journal in March.
Freedom’s debt stems from a $2 billion deal in 2004 that saw private equity firms New York-based Blackstone Group LP and Rhode Island’s Providence Equity Partners LLC buy half of the company from members of the founding Hoiles family who wanted to cash out.
