Richard Mirman, three days on the job as interim publisher and chief executive of the Orange County Register and Freedom Communications Holdings Inc.’s other publications, counted the perks his new role has to offer.
“Can you imagine, I go to work, and I sit in my office and have coffee and read the newspaper, and it’s all part of my job description?” the former casino marketing executive joked.
The brew may be good at Freedom’s recently sold headquarters, but Mirman has his work cut out for him, and he knows it.
The Freedom investor took over day-to-day operations from Aaron Kushner, who remains the Santa Ana-based company’s chief executive and co-owner. Mirman will oversee the newsroom, advertising, marketing and circulation.
The appointment, unanimously approved by Freedom’s board of directors, follows Kushner’s decision to switch newspaper delivery service from the Los Angeles Times to ACI California LLC. The change resulted in missed newspaper deliveries and pushed up Freedom’s print publication deadlines, affecting night sports coverage.
The Times, looking to recover about $4 million in what it called an unpaid paper distribution bill and other damages, filed a lawsuit against Freedom last Tuesday, Mirman’s second day on the job.
The new publisher invested in the company last year, right before Kushner and co-owner Eric Spitz acquired the daily Press-Enterprise in Riverside in November for $27.3 million.
Mirman met Spitz through a friend, and their vision for the business matched from the outset.
“My passion is around getting involved in businesses that have all the fundamentals of growth but have yet to achieve their potential, and that’s the way he described the newspaper business, the fact that it was all this content, it was important in the community and had a great brand and lots and lots of subscribers and readers and just had all these great fundamentals,” he said. “I got really excited about it and met Aaron, and I became an investor.”
Mirman said the “interim” title was his idea.
“I wanted everyone to know that I will prove myself,” he said. “If I do, I’d like the opportunity to continue, and if I don’t, then as an investor and as an adviser to Eric and Aaron, I think an alternative should be considered. I think sometimes putting pressure to deliver is important. To me this is a sprint. There is a lot of opportunity, and I want to make an impact.”
Mirman said his No. 1 job is to address the delivery disruption.
“We learned that people have a lot of passion for the Register, and that’s really reinvigorated us,” he said. “… We’re going to work hard to make this right.”
‘Reintroduce Paper’
Second on Mirman’s to-do list is to “reintroduce” the newspaper to the OC community, perhaps a hint that the Register may be delivered free to a select audience, just as Freedom did with the now-shuttered Los Angles Register when it tried to build its subscription base.
“We want people to experience and read the newspaper, and we know that they’ll be convinced that once they read it, they’ll be excited to subscribe,” he said. “And we want to bring that to the market.”
Mirman, 48, has no publishing experience but said he worked as a consultant for Kushner and Spitz prior to investing in the company, handling “a little bit of marketing but mostly on the circulation side.”
Mirman earlier in his career served as chief marketing officer for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., which grew its revenue from “$1.5 billion to $10 billion” in nine years. He also founded his own consulting practice, The Mirman Group, assisting clients outside the gaming industry.
He said the third area of his immediate focus is courting advertisers.
“… We are strongly positioned in the market to really speak to Orange County residents, and we think it’s a great opportunity for advertisers to communicate with their customer base.”
Freedom this month relisted for sale 14.3 acres surrounding its headquarters in hopes of making $45 million or more. It’s also been trimming operations in recent months—it folded the Los Angeles Register last month after just five months of publication and reduced the frequency of several other publications. Twenty-nine employees were laid off, and two-week furloughs were implemented for the rest.
Growth
Mirman said more cost-cutting measures aren’t off the table but that his aim is to spur growth.
“I think whenever you come into a business like this, you have to look at all aspects of it,” he said. “My focus is on growing the business, and if we grow the business good, things are going to happen.”
Mirman said he has no way to predict whether his efforts will be good enough to avoid bankruptcy.
“I’m not looking into any crystal balls,” he said. “We are fighting every single day to grow the business.”
