Michael Eisner talking to Tribune creditors

The former Disney CEO is in discussions about possibly operating Tribune once it comes out of bankruptcy, the LAT is reporting. Sources tell the paper that talks are exploratory - changes can't be made until the company comes out of Chapter 11, and that could be many months down the road. All this also assumes that the company will be owned by a group of senior creditors that includes JPMorgan Chase and two hedge funds, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and locally-based Oaktree Capital Management.

Under one scenario being discussed by the senior creditors, Eisner, who is 68, would be joined by Jeff Shell, a former News Corp. cable executive who is now in top management at Comcast Corp., according to four people with knowledge of the talks. Shell would become chief executive of Tribune, replacing Randy Michaels. Eisner was unavailable for comment, according to his spokeswoman. But he told Variety in a wide-ranging interview Monday that he has been accumulating Tribune debt. "You are talking to somebody who is buying debt in the Tribune Co. The salvation of the newspaper is some kind of pay arrangement [online], which will evolve into something significant," Eisner said in the interview.

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Eisner was first approached about becoming a member of a reconfigured Tribune board by John Angelo, chief executive of the investment firm he co-founded with Michael Gordon, according to people with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak. Angelo is a childhood friend of Eisner's. Those conversations led to discussion of a potentially larger role for Eisner, who, after making his mark in television programming at ABC, ran Paramount Pictures with Barry Diller in the 1970s, and then Disney.