* Top executives ineligible for bonus payments

* Bonuses are for help in selling assets, cutting costs

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - Tribune Co (TRBCQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) asked a bankruptcy court on Wednesday to authorize severance payments to workers laid off before the media company's Chapter 11 filing in December and to pay bonuses to about 700 employees.

In two motions filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Tribune said the bonus payments would amount to about $13 million. The severance payments, which were halted by Tribune's bankruptcy filing, would be about $2.5 million.

Tribune's top 10 executives, including Chief Executive Sam Zell, the real estate mogul who engineered the newspaper publisher and broadcaster's $8.2 billion buyout, would not be eligible for the bonuses.

The motions come on the same day that the Chicago Tribune, the company's hometown paper, said it would cut 53 newsroom positions, or about 11 percent of its news staff, to save money and refocus its efforts on local news coverage.

The bonus payments, Tribune says, are to reward efforts in 2008 that it said could generate about $425 million in annualized cashflow.

They include a redesign of eight daily papers that Tribune undertook to make them look fresher and more attractive to wider audiences, and to save money on their production. Tribune expects the redesigns to save about $80 million annually.