Santa Ana-based Freedom Communications Holdings Inc. is reverting to a weekly publication schedule for its community newspapers that serve Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.
The changes in frequency for Irvine World News and the Current come less than a year after Freedom relaunched them as Monday-through-Friday supplements to its Orange County Register. The new publication schedules for the community newspapers were billed as a way to provide more local coverage as an additional value to Register subscribers as the daily made a push to increase circulation.
The shift back to weekly schedules is a part of the “normal course of business to examine all aspects of our newspapers and make improvements based on what resonates most with subscribers and advertisers,” according to Eric Morgan, Freedom’s communications manager. “Time-sensitive news and city news that has broader interest to the region are now online and in the Register daily.”
Irvine World News and the Current will publish on Thursdays.
Freedom also cut the frequency of the Sun Post News, a community newspaper serving San Clemente, from twice a week to Fridays only.
Its other 19 community newspapers—including the Santa Ana Register, Brea/La Habra Star-Progress and Yorba Linda Star—also will publish on Fridays. The day was chosen “to better align with weekend reading, activities, shopping—and the general needs of readers and advertisers,” Morgan said.
Freedom does not plan any layoffs due to the changes, according to Morgan, who declined comment on recent reports that some staffers would be reassigned to the Los Angeles Register, a new daily Freedom has said it plans to start in L.A. County.
The media company recently laid off 74 from its newsrooms in Orange County and Riverside, where it paid $27.2 million to buy the Press-Enterprise from Dallas-based A. H. Belo Corp. in December.
Freedom also announced it plans to sell the Daily Press in Victorville and the Desert Dispatch in Barstow to New Media Investment Group Inc. in New York for $8 million.
