Freedom Communications Holdings Inc.’s flagship Orange County Register and its newly acquired Press-Enterprise are sharing most of their upper management, a likely cost-savings measure for the Santa Ana-based media company.
Mike Burns, senior vice president of sales at the Register, is the new publisher of the Press-Enterprise, the company announced a day after the sale closed. He also will serve as the Register’s senior vice president of revenue, advising “on key decisions affecting advertiser operations across print and digital platforms,” as well as “work directly with Freedom’s owners … to align staff and leverage collaborations between the Press-Enterprise and the Orange County Register.”
Coronado
Michael Coronado, a Register “team leader” who oversaw coverage of San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and Laguna Beach, has taken over from Nels Jensen as the editor of the Press-Enterprise.
Coronado will report to Rob Curley, deputy editor for local content at the Register. Curley is in charge of more than 25 community weeklies and dailies, including the recently launched Long Beach Register.
Curley’s duties will now expand to the Inland Empire—he’s been named the Riverside daily’s executive editor.
Freedom made way for new management in Riverside by severing ties with a number of long-serving executives there. It started within days of completing the $27.5 million purchase of the Press-Enterprise last month, with pink slips for Jensen, publisher Ron Redfern—a former president of the Register—and Senior Vice President of finance and publishing operations Ed Lasak.
Two other Press-Enterprise executives—Aaron Kotarek, a vice president of circulation, and Ken Nelson, a senior vice president of advertising—“saw it coming and actually secured new positions prior to the close,” according to Redfern, who said he expects Freedom co-owner and Register Publisher Aaron Kushner to look for economies of scale as he folds the Press-Enterprise into operations.
“I think the new owner … plans to structure the business differently for operating it in the future, and he doesn’t need, apparently, local executive management,” Redfern said. “It looks to me like he’s trying to secure and capture as much synergy and cost savings as possible with this acquisition. He’s got a lot of infrastructure in the Register already, and I expect he thinks that he can operate, manage and lead a lot of those functions out of [Santa Ana].”
Kushner said the choice of new leadership for the Press-Enterprise is an example of how Freedom aims to grow the newspaper and maximize collaborations between the two publications.
“Changes in management are a natural part of institutions evolving,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ron Redfern and Nels Jensen both had long and successful tenures navigating the Press-Enterprise through challenging times and we are grateful for the service they provided.”
Redfern said he’s taking on the chairman role at Riverside’s chamber of commerce in 2014 and will continue to serve on the University of California, Riverside’s board of trustees.
“Challenging Times”
He said “challenging times” may not be over just yet for Kushner, pointing to the Inland Empire’s “natural resistance” to outside influences.
“This is a very unique community out here,” he said. “It’s a different community than Orange County, and while it’s being looked on as maybe a second-tier region, the people that live out here are very proud of their cities.
“I think the community is looking for this to be good for the paper, but at the same time it’s a very demanding community, and I’m not sure they’re going to feel real comfortable with it being managed long distance. … There is a natural resistance out here to Orange County and L.A. people coming into the region, so it’s a little parochial in that regard. That’s something he’ll have to deal with.”
The Press-Enterprise, with 83 employees, is a tightly staffed organization for a newspaper of its size, with thin profits, according to Redfern.
“Kushner is a highly leveraged buyer, so cash flow I expect is a big challenge, not just here, but he already said he’s got negative cash flow in Orange County,” he said. “This paper has very tight margins out here.”
Kushner said in an earlier interview that his team will expand the Press-Enterprise’s local coverage to provide “more value to the subscribers and the community,” but he didn’t confirm whether he’ll make newsroom hires as he has done at the Register.
“Right now, we are focused on digesting what is currently there,” he said. “I think they have a fantastic brand and a very important role in the community. Riverside and San Bernardino County is a very large market, with a lot going on. We really like the foundation that has been built there and retained.”
Kushner said Register advertisers will be offered combination Register/Press-Enterprise buys.
“It’s a huge increase in both circulation and population base for many advertisers of the Register, and that’s a very important opportunity,” he said. “There are a lot of advertisers who are not taking advantage of the Register’s impact, and hopefully a few of them will expand what they do with us.”
The Press-Enterprise’s average Sunday circulation as of Sept. 30 was 146,129, down 3% from a year earlier, according to the Alliance for Audited Media in Arlington Heights, Ill. It had 124,051 weekday subscribers, a 2% dip from the same period last year.
The Register’s average weekday circulation fell 6% to 149,580. The average circulation for the Sunday edition was 267,121, a 10% decrease from a year earlier.
