The Tribune Co., which has been trying for months to line up a buyer for its eight-paper daily newspaper group, today said it will spin off the operation to concentrate on its broadcast properties.

tribuneThe collection includes the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant, Morning Call, Daily Press, Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sun Sentinel.

On July 1, Tribune announced a $2.7B deal to buy 19 TV stations from Oak Hill Capital to complement its own 23 units, making the Chicago-based company one of the country’s biggest TV station owners.

"Moving to separate our publishing and broadcasting assets into two distinct companies will bring single-minded attention to the journalistic standards, advertising partnerships and digital prospects of our iconic newspapers, while also enabling us to take advantage of the operational and strategic opportunities created by the significant scale we are building in broadcasting," Peter Liguori, Tribune CEO, in a statement.

The company is expected to forge a management blueprint for the newly minted Tribune Publishing Co. and Tribune Co. in nine to 12 months. Each with have its own board of directors.

Tribune is following in the steps of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Jeff Bewkes' Time Warner in spinning off publishing properties.