Washington Post Says It Will Seek New Home

Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times The Washington Post building. Katharine Weymouth, the publisher, has hired two real estate firms as advisers.

The Washington Post, another newspaper struggling to trim costs, is planning to move out of the District of Columbia headquarters where its staff has worked for nearly four decades.

Katharine Weymouth, the paper’s publisher, sent a memo to the staff on Friday morning announcing that the company was looking into a move and had hire two real estate firms, Studley Inc. and JM Zell Partners, as advisers. The company is also interviewing space planners and architects for guidance.

“Our preliminary analysis suggests that a move will make good operational and economic sense, however we have not yet decided on where or when,” Ms. Weymouth said in her memo.

Since the company removed its presses more than a decade ago, Ms. Weymouth said, “we are no longer tied to this particular location.”

According to the company’s Web site, a $5 million printing plant was built at the current location on 15th Street NW in 1950, and The Post’s $25 million headquarters building was officially dedicated there in October 1973. Katharine Graham, the former publisher and Ms. Weymouth’s grandmother, originally wanted I. M. Pei to design the building in the shape of a typewriter, according to Dave Kindred, a former Post columnist who wrote a 2010 book about the paper, “Morning Miracle: Inside The Washington Post.” But that plan proved too costly.

Over the years, The Washington Post newsroom has been a destination for heads of state, business executives and Hollywood moguls and stars. An article in The Post in April 1975 about the filming of “All the President’s Men” said the newspaper allowed filmmakers to shoot only the building’s exterior. But film crews passed through repeatedly to “soak up authenticity, rub elbows with newspaper people and learn the routie of a daily newspaper.”

Mr. Kindred recalled that when he was reporting his book between 2007 and 2009, he rode an elevator with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who had been visiting Donald E. Graham, Ms. Graham’s son and chief executive of the Washington Post Company. Mr. Kindred also recalled a day when the actor Brad Pitt stopped by to glean inspiration for a movie he was working on.

“Everyone has passed through at one time or another,” sa! id Mr. Ki! ndred.

Newspapers around the country are trying to find ways to cut costs as they battle a troubled advertising environment and their readers migrate to digital news sources. The Post underwent a major shake-up last fall when Ms. Weymouth abruptly replaced the paper’s executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, with Martin Baron, editor of The Boston Globe.

Andrew J. Asbill, a Washington-based director of the capital markets group at Cushman & Wakefield, said that whoever purchased the headquarters would most likely tear it down and rebuild because it’s an older building and relatively far from the Metro.

Ms. Weymouth’s memo di not say where the company was looking to relocate.

Philadelphia Papers Reach Tentative Deal With Union

The Philadelphia Media Network, which publishes of The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Daily News and Philly.com, reached a tentative two-year contract with its union that guarantees that both papers will continue to be run as daily print publications.

According to a memo sent out by the Newspaper Guild Bargaining Committee, the company agreed to promise that no Guild members will be laid off during the first year of the contract. In return, employees must accept 2.5 percent pay cuts for 2013 and 2014. Employees at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Daily News also must accept two furlough weeks per year. A vote to ratify the contract is expected next week.

The announcement of the deal, which came Thursday night, follows a series of contentious negotiations between ownership and employees in recent months. A group of some of Philadelphia’s powerful business and political leaders bought the news organizations last April for $55 million. While the new owners had said at the time they wanted to preseve both papers, they found themselves facing the broader challenges â€" declining advertising revenue and circulation â€" that was gripping the rest of the industry. Last month, the owners threatened to put the properties up for sale if an agreement was not reached.

On Wednesday, a coalition of business leaders and labor groups called Save Philly Newspapers was formed to fight cutbacks at the papers after they heard about threats that the group would replace experienced journalists with less experienced and less costly reporters.

Marc Stier, a spokesman for the coalition, said “We’re very pleased that they reached the agreement as it preserves the newspapers for two years and we’re especially pleased that it removes the threat to the established writers and editors who are central to great journalism in Philadelphia.”

A spokesman for the Philadelphia Media Network did not respond to an e-mail and call for comment.

Capus, Head of NBC News, Is Departing

Steve Capus, the president of NBC News for the last eight years, said Friday that he is leaving the network news division in the coming weeks.

“It has been a privilege to have spent two decades here, but it is now time to head in a new direction,” Mr. Capus wrote in an internal memo on Friday afternoon. “I have informed Pat Fili-Krushel that I will be leaving NBC News in the coming weeks.”

Mr. Capus’s exit has been rumored at the network ever since Comcast put Ms. Fili-Krushel in charge of all of NBC’s news assets six months ago.

Mr. Capus called it an “extremely difficult decision to walk away.” He started at NBC as a producer 20 years ago this month.

\"30 Rock\" Gets a Ratings Bounce for Series Finale

The finale of NBC’s much-honored comedy “30 Rock” showed a bit of bounce against extremely tough competition Thursday night, rising 26 percent from its previous week to a level it had not reached in two years.

That still added up to a modest audience of 4.8 million, dwarfed by “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS (17.5 million), and “American Idol” (13.7 million) on Fox.

The hour-long finale of “30 Rock,” winner of 14 Emmy Awards â€" and 90 total nominations â€" drew a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 audience that NBC sells to advertisers. That’s up 36 percent from last week and the show’s best performance in a year in that age group.

In the meantime, a new NBC drama, “Do No Harm,” had a totally dismal premiere Thursday with only a little over 3 million viewers and 0.9 rating in the 18-49 category, one of the worst network debuts ever.