Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
The first question is from Bonnie Wachtel - Wachtel & Company.
Bonnie Wachtel - Wachtel & Company
Thank you. Listen, I'm awfully sorry to begin on a negative note. I'm a fan of the Sun-Times, and I know you're working just terribly diligently to turn this around, but let me raise an issue that came up on the last conference call, which is one of the listeners said it would seem from an outside observer that the business solution to the problems is that Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune should merge, and the answer is, you could only do that if one of you was in a troubled situation - I can't remember who were you referring that to. Could you comment at all at, whether there would be any sort of a contingency plan in the works that might allow the two of you to discuss this and possibly go that direction, or at least comment on this idea again?
James McDonough
We have contingency plans for all manner of things, which of course we can't divulge at this point in time, but believe that we are covered on virtually every possible avenue that we can or might take.
Operator
Your next question comes from Eugene Fox - Cardinal Capital Management.
Eugene Fox - Cardinal Capital Management
Could you please talk about, if possible, when you talk about the Sun-Times, and the community newspapers, the amount of overhead that you're allocating or, said differently, what the relative margins of these papers might be on a pre-allocation basis?
William Barker
Gene, if you look at the P&L that's out there, if you look at other operating costs, which would be below the sales and marketing line, those are primarily what are being allocated out. So you have revenue, you have cost of sales, which is direct to each of the groups, sales and marketing, which is largely direct, there's a little bit of allocation in there, but largely direct, and then other operating costs which are largely the shared and centralized stuff that we allocate out. So if you're looking for a more direct margin before allocated costs, I would probably cut off the P&L after sales and marketing.
Eugene Fox - Cardinal Capital Management
And if we were going to allocate that, we would do it on sales basis, because that's the way you all allocated it?
William Barker
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