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The distribution of business information is changing, and business-to-business (b-to-b) media companies such as Ziff Davis Media, United Business Media (UBM), and Reed Elsevier have responded with moves of their own. On March 5, 2008, Ziff Davis Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure its operations and pay down its debt, citing decreased revenue from subscriptions and print advertising as contributions to its decline. The restructuring plan of Ziff Davis Media, if approved by the court, would reduce $225 million of the companys $400 million debt. Less than one week earlier, UBM announced that it had eliminated the CMP Media name and restructured it into four market-focused businesses, each with its own CEO. UBMs announcement was preceded by Reed Elseviers decision to put its Reed Business Information (RBI) unit on the sale block to decrease the exposure of its parent company to cyclical advertising markets. Rumors are circulating that a few British private equity firms are interested in acquiring RBIs portfolio. The RBI unit that includes Broadcasting & Cable, Publishers Weekly, and Variety is expected to fetch between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. While the circumstances of the moves of these three companies are totally different, the collective idea is that there is a decline of print products as an underlying asset and troubles exist in controlling the migration of ad dollars from print to online, according to Tom Kemp, a managing director at private equity company Veronis Suhler Stevenson and former chairman-CEO of Penton Media.
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