Tribune's creditors to toss Sam Zell -- about time.

Give Sam Zell this much credit: He didn't fail small.

The wee Tribune Co. chairman is fond of loud talk and outsize gestures and in the media world, he'll be remembered for a very big move: His hyper-leveraged takeover of a struggling newspaper and TV conglomerate, and the almost immediate descent of said conglomerate into Chapter 11.

If this sounds a bit like a eulogy, it's supposed to. The Chicago Sun-Timesreports that Tribune Co.'s creditors are pushing a reorganization plan that will see Zell out the door and Tribune's assets sold off piecemeal. This isn't going to happen right away; Tribune's management gets to present its own reorganization plan first, and it doesn't have to do that until November. But it's a good bet that, by the time Zell sends out his annual fanciful year-end greeting cards, he will once again be merely a real-estate mogul, no longer a media mogul.