Figure it is a good time to get into the news business -- shall I say --  the real news business?Tribune Media, the big TV station group, has, for a while now, been planning a new digital national news site -- Tribune.com.

With a longtime Tribune TV station news legacy -- as well as its longer association with newspapers (now separate from the TV side of the company under Tribune Publishing) -- it would give the company some gravitas moving more broadly into a digital age business.

But out of the blue, Tribune Media has stepped on the brakes. No reason has been given -- other than this:

“Today, we are taking another step in the strategic review process, reorganizing our centralized digital operation and fully integrating it into Tribune Broadcasting,” wrote Peter Kern, interim CEO of Tribune Media, as reported by Politico. “As a result of this move, a number of people in our central digital organization will be leaving the company.”

Tribune Media has been rumored to be for sale, possibly to the largest TV station group in the U.S., the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Still, you can’t blame Tribune for trying.

All one needs to do is look at the performances of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, which have been reaping big rewards: High viewership and growing national advertising revenue before and since the pesidential election.

Fox News Channel took in $1.2 billion in national TV advertising for the year period ending April 12; CNN, $852.3 million; and MSNBC, $247.5 million, according to iSpot.tv. Adding in affiliate fee revenues sweetens the pot more.

Factoring in fake news reports, now more focused U.S. citizens are looking for fact-based information -- and yes, opinion.

To be fair, Tribune’s initial effort was around digital media, not TV. Maybe this was about making a national news beachhead.

TV has come under a bit of an attack for much on-demand content -- subscription and/or advertising supported, mostly for scripted TV shows. In that regard, news TV programming -- virtually all consumed live -- is a good place to be, poised to command growing advertising cost per thousand viewer (CPM) prices.

Now that Tribune looks to have departed, might another large media company look to make a play -- not just with a digital media news site, but perhaps a higher profile cable news channel?