GE's Jack Welch on TV, newspaper, Sox deal that wasn't

Ex-GE boss Jack Welch, in town this week to help promote wife Suzy's self-help book, 10-10-10, told me it has been bittersweet catching up with NBC local-television executives at stations like Channel 10 in Philadelphia. Eva Blackwell of Channel 10 had no comment.

"These people used to work for me," Welch said. (GE owns NBC. ) "They're really hurting. Local advertising has gone away. " Generally, local TV is "in worse shape than newspapers," Welch said.

Didn't Welch and a group of fellow wealthy Bostonians try to buy the Boston Globe a couple of years back? "We came close to buying the Red Sox, we figured they would throw in the newspaper," Welch told me. New York Times Co. owns both the Globe and a stake in the Sox.

"We figured the Globe was worth $50 million - now it's probably negative $50 million - and the (Times' Red Sox stake) about $175 million - now it would be $250 million. " But Times Co. "didn't want to talk," Welch added. "They told us it was a 'strategic property. ' "

The Times put its Sox stake on the block in January, and it plans job cuts at the money-losing Globe.