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More changes could be in store at the Times

Under new owner the Tribune Co., the Los Angeles Times is paring down local coverage in favor of more regional, national and global news in a bid to become more profitable.

Last week the newspaper cut 170 jobs, including 125 editorial and 45 advertising positions, and said it would scrap what’s been described as a two-year experiment, the Our Times block-by-block news section.

“The decision to cease publication of Our Times is both a journalistic and financial one,” said John Puerner, the paper’s publisher, in a statement.

The project hasn’t attracted the readership and advertising needed to make it successful, Puerner said. The Times plans to make extensive changes to the B section where Our Times stories have been running. Those changes are expected to launch in early 2001.

“They are cutting jobs, but they are making a strategic decision,” said Edward Antorino, an analyst at Wasserstein Perella Securities in New York. “Under (former chief executive) Mark Willes, the Times entered into initiatives to drive circulation, but they didn’t work.”

The Tribune’s $6.5 billion purchase of Times Mirror Co. earlier this year has led to a number of management changes in the past few months. They include the recent move by the OC edition’s president, Steven U. Lee, to senior vice president of circulation and consumer marketing. The Times employs 6,600 in all, including 1,100 in its editorial department. 1999 sales were $1.2 billion.

Tribune officials “paid a good price for the company and want to make it as profitable and effective as possible,” Antorino said. “They are likely to do a bunch of things because they have to get a return on investment. They need to improve the Times newspaper’s profits to justify the price they paid.”

The Times said last week it no longer plans to publish its 14 Our Times sections in Orange, Los Angeles and Ventura counties, but would continue to publish regional editions such as the Orange County edition. Officials also said they would continue to produce eight Times Community News publications such as the Daily Pilot.

But late last week, OC edition staff members in Costa Mesa learned that several Times Community News executives and employees,including editor William Lobdell and managing editor Steve Marble,would be taking positions in the Orange County edition’s newsroom, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Lobdell will replace religion writer Elaine Gale, who becomes a general assignment reporter, according to a company memo. Marble is to be assistant city editor, replacing Mark Platte.

Concern among staff members, sources said, is that the community papers within the division could be up for sale.

Martha Goldstein, the paper’s vice president of communications, said there was no official comment on further changes. Regarding the Orange County editions, she said, “Our Orange County coverage will continue to be a very high priority.”

Since launching Our Times in June 1998, the Times’ home delivery in Orange County has dropped by 9,051 copies, or 5%, to 156,304 for its average daily circulation.

(The comparison is based on an average circulation for the 12-month period ended March 31, 1998, vs. the average for the six-month period ended March 31, 2000, the latest available by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.) The company’s Sunday average deliveries were down by 9,037 copies to 228,603 copies for the same period. Overall, the company’s average daily circulation in OC is down by 3,145 copies to 196,826 copies for the period, and Sunday is down by 11,913 copies to 259,409 copies.

Rival The Orange County Register, for example, has shown circulation gains of 6,099 copies to 338,126 copies for its average daily circulation for the 12 months ended March 31, 2000, vs. the year ended March 31, 1998. n

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