A message from the publisher on changes in the Register
February 1st, 2008, 10:21 am · 10 Comments · posted by Rebecca Allen
To our Readers:
Thanks for taking the time to write to us. I’m sorry many of you are disappointed in our changes.
I want to correct an erroneous impression some have about our owners. The Hoiles family that has owned the Register since 1935 still owns it. Investment partners have a minority share of the privately-held stock, but they are not calling any of the shots. Neither is the family, when it comes to the changes. Those are my decisions.
The Register is under economic duress. Those of you who are in business can understand what that means. Less than 15 percent of revenue of a newspaper comes from subscriptions. More than 85 percent comes from advertising. Large newspapers all across the country have been challenged by Internet competition for advertising. We have also been hit with huge declines in employment and real estate advertising for the past year — in the tens of millions of dollars range for the Register. In addition, there have been three price increases announced since the end of the summer for newsprint — a total possible impact of $5 million in additional expenses for the Register in 2008.
These are all tough things to work through at the same time that a general recession seems to have gripped the economy. I admit we’ve been facing some very difficult decisions. I can understand how many readers can take issue with various steps we’ve taken in recent months. We’ve taken those steps after much discussion, analysis and, frankly, hand wringing. We are trying to preserve jobs so we can continue to gather and distribute important information whether online or in print.
Please don’t credit our decisions to greed. The family ownership has agreed to accept dramatically lower performance, both last year and in our projected 2008 business year. They have refused to force management to take some of the more drastic cost-cutting steps taken by many publicly owned newspaper companies.
We will work our way through this down period and when business gets better we will again expand the amount of space we give to news. And I’m sure editors will weigh carefully what content to add back to the Register. Your comments are duly noted.
Thank you for caring enough about the Register to send us a note. I appreciate it.
Terry Horne
President and Publisher
The Orange County Register
February 1st, 2008 at 10:35 am
Dear Mr. Horne,
Thank you and everyone at the Register for doing everything possible to keep our monring newspaper informative and interesting, even in these times of financial difficulties in your industry.
My husband and I enjoy our morning coffee and paper immensely and even though we are quite computer saavy, we are of the generation who appreciates a newspaper! It’s just somehow more enjoyable than reading a computer screen, although when traveling we do enjoy getting your paper on line.
I very much like the new Local section, but would like to add one request. There are many small local non-profit organizations, a few of which I am involved with, and more coverage of their events and efforts would be a great service to our community. An example - Working Wardrobes is an incredibly effective organization in helping people recovering from a life crises get back to work www.workingwardrobes.org) and from time to time the Register has covered some of their events and programs. However, this past November they held a very successful & unique Gala, (Black Tie and Tennies) which was submitted to the Register with photos, etc., and it has never appeared. I know there are many great causes, but this organization has served OC for 17 years, served 4,000 people last year and deserves to be seen. I know there are many other organizations that can also benefit from the awareness that our local newspaper can create for them. Hopefully there will be room in the expanded Local section.
By the way, we LOVE Frank! Please keep his column going, and keep up all of your great work. Thanks again for your service to our community.
Warm regards,
Judy Fox Brandt
Fox & Company
and the business in the News section seems to be working out fine.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:39 am
I am a bit confused - I just submitted a long comment.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:50 pm
How convenient that you have deleted ( at my last count) 85 negative responses (responses at your request) to your change in format and now deleted them all and only post the “ONE” positive one I have seen in over a week. I guess you would call this cooking the books in your desperate favor to substantiate your ill advised agenda. That said I have tried to be objective with your new format and find it a dump. If I wanted to subscribe to a classified add tabloid I could get the Pennysaver for free. There is currently a ratio of 60% plus of adds to viable if that news coverage ( a whole 2 page add today for Dish TV?) I guess your reporters cannot find news yet the Times can. What a shame for our OC citizens to loose what was once a good local paper. I will pass these comments to other periodicals to assure the real facts are known not just what you want to see on your blog to serve your diminishing life boat of a newspaper.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Judy Fox Brandt,
I wanted to let you know why you didn’t see your comment immediately. The blog comments have to be approved before they appear. This keeps the spam out. You should be able to see your comment now. Thanks for taking the time to write. I’ll pass your comment along to our Life, etc. editor (about the non-profits) and to Frank.
Rebecca Allen
Deputy Editor, Features
February 1st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Drew Kovacs,
Thanks for taking the time to write to us. I wanted to let you know that the messages, unfavorable and favorable, are attached to the blog post that the writers were responding to. So if you scroll down in the blog to the previous post titled “Consolidation of business news,” all the comments are there.
Rebecca Allen
Deputy Editor, Features
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Hello O.C. Register’s President & publisher, Terry Herne:
Well I hope you are through redoing the Business (Marketplace) section because there isn’t much left to change. As an investor I was very sorry to see the stock mark results be deleted even though they had been shrunk to the point you needed a telescope to read them. Your web site may be good for one or two stocks but if you have a portfolio of any size it simply takes too much to do them one at a time.
A very old, now unhappy, subscriber,
Virgil Hamilton
PS: I realize your financial problems and hope things get better for the paper, which I do enjoy reading. I guess I feel better venting my unhappiness with the changes.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:50 am
As an English major I cringe when the word “gotten” is used instead of received or obtained, etc. Such as was printed on Feb 1 of Local “Local Readers, We’re listening” - “You have noticed that the section has gotten bigger, ” etc. And several times since in other articles. As a newspaper I feel it is also your duty to inform in an appropriate way and possibly using correct, acceptable English. Is that asking too much?
February 4th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the current local section. I can set in my easy chair and read the AM paper
February 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I haven’t cancelled my subscription yet. I’m curious to see how long it will take to put yourselves OOB.
March 30th, 2008 at 10:18 am
The OCR is in trouble because they have not kept up with modern marketing. Their advertising is too expensive. You can purchase an on line ad in the Pennysaver for from free to 50 dollars depending upon the extras.
An ad in the Register costs $400, tell me where would you put your ad? I choose the Pennysaver, or Caigslist..
Also the Register has an extreme bias, which is blatant. They have a pro illegal immigrant stance, which is offensive to most those who would be subscribers. Why not just become a Spanish language paper?