Times scraps sale of Boston Globe

       The New York Times Co said it had given up its plan to sell the Boston Globe and related businesses after drastic cuts it imposed on the daily newspaper earlier this year improved its financial position.
       The announcement caps a painful odyssey for the 137-year-old Boston Globe that began earlier this year when the Times threatened to close the paper if it could not get its unions to agree to deep cost cuts.
       Selling the Globe would have been a dismal exit from Boston for the Times.The company spent $1.1 billion to buy the Globe in 1993, at the time the most money ever paid for a single US newspaper. The offers it reportedly received for the Globe this month were less than 10% of what it paid.
       The Times did not mention the bids and officials were unavailable for comment about whether they played a role in the decision to stop the sale. The company instead said the Globe 's financial outlook has brightened.
       "The Globe has significantly improved its financial footing by following the strategic plan it set out at the beginning of the year," Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr and chief executive Janet Robinson wrote to Globe workers on Wednesday.
       "All along, we explicitly recognised that a careful restructuring of the Globe was one possible route and, thanks to your hard work, that is precisely what has been done," they wrote.
       "I think many of us felt that the more we learned about the potential buyers,the more the Times seemed to be the best possible owner for us," said Michael Paulson, a reporter who covers religion for the Globe.
       When the decision was announced in the newsroom, he said "there was no celebration but there was a sense of relief."
       The Times, in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission,said it was still considering options for the Telegram & Gazette , a daily paper that serves Worcester, Massachusetts, a city about 40 miles west of Boston.
       The Times wants to reach a decision soon "and we will provide a full update to our colleagues as quickly as possible,"Sulzberger and Robinson wrote.
       It did not say if it was still trying to sell its interest in the company that owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team.