Yellow Pages Companies Sinking Into Oblivion

For a vivid reminder of the way the Internet–combined with a vicious recession–can destroy a well-established industry, consider today’s news from the collapsing Yellow Pages business.

Idearc, a 2006 spinoff from Verizon (VZ), late yesterday warned investors that it is considering various ways to restructure its mountainous debt; among the options it’s mulling over are a prepackaged bankruptcy filing; though the company said if it can’t negotiate a prepackaged deal with creditors, it might filed for bankruptcy protection anyway.

CEO Scott Klein said in a statement that the directory publisher is “making progress on our transformational and cost-cutting initiatives,” but that “the unprecedented economic challenges this nation is facing are creating never-before-seen obstacles for our clients and, as a result, for us as well.”

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