Tribune Co. reported a US$4.53 billion loss in the second quarter, due to a $3.84 billion accounting charge, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

However, the Chicago-based company did make good on a promise to reduce its debt, paying $807 million on the $1.4 billion it must pay off by June 2009. Overall, the company's debt is at nearly $13 billion.

The accounting charge is “nearly all” related to Tribune Co.'s 2000 buyout of the Times Mirror Co., the Chicago Tribune reported. It was taken to write down “the value of intangible assets known as goodwill in its publishing group.”

Tribune's revenues in the second quarter were down 5.7 percent, from $1.18 billion the same time in 2007, to $1.11 billion this year. Results were hurt most by the accounting charge and a $704 million loss from discontinued operations, linked to the sale of its controlling share in the New York-based Newsday, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Tribune Co. still must pay an additional $600 million by June 2009, but its sale of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and other related assets should bring in about $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

However, although it is making its short-term debt payments, other problems loom, such as the troubled newspaper sector across the United States. At Tribune, which owns eight major daily U.S. newspapers (including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times), advertising revenue also dropped 15 percent in the second quarter, according to The Wall Street Journal. To offset this problem, Tribune CEO Sam Zell called for staff cuts and newspaper page reductions.

“Our publishing results are, for the most part, in line with industry trends, which remain consistent with what we reported in the first quarter,” said Zell, according to the Chicago Tribune.