Daily Pilot to return to Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach
The Daily Pilot, Huntington Beach Independent and Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot will merge Sept. 7, forming an expanded publication dedicated to coastal Orange County, Los Angeles Times Community News announced this week.
The newspaper, which will retain the Daily Pilot name, will serve Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Fountain Valley, Sunset Beach and Seal Beach.
The Pilot will continue to publish Wednesdays through Sundays in print and daily online. Readers in Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Laguna Beach, who receive the Independent and Coastline Pilot on Thursdays and Fridays, respectively, will now receive local news five days per week in the Daily Pilot. The Independent and Coastline titles will still appear on the tops of pages to reflect their heritage.
“We are fortunate that in this day and age, when contraction is all you hear about, that the Daily Pilot has the ability to fund an investment like this and actually return to communities it once covered,” said John Canalis, executive editor of Times Community News. “There’s excitement in the newsroom to serve Laguna and Huntington more frequently and still give our core subscribers in Newport and Costa Mesa everything they’re used to.”
Combined weekly circulation is forecast at 125,922, with a high of 29,882 on Sundays and a low of 19,000 on Wednesdays. The Daily Pilot, Coastline Pilot and Independent websites average about 34,000 combined page views per day.
The Huntington Beach Independent, Coastline Pilot and Daily Pilot staffs also will merge. Times Community News has 25 editorial employees in Orange County.
The centerpiece of the expanded Daily Pilot is a new Friday sports section, Coastal Sports, which will focus on high school sports throughout a region that includes powerhouses in football, aquatics, tennis and other varsity and club sports.
“Sports teams and our local athletes serve as strong connections among many families in our communities,” said Daily Pilot Sports Editor Steve Virgen. “Their efforts and their stories are important to the Daily Pilot and relevant to our readers.”
The Pilot will continue to be inserted inside The Times for home delivery and in newsstands and retail outlets like grocery stores. The Pilot will remain available in its own stand-alone racks and in bundles delivered to cafes, restaurants and shops.
However, free samples of the Daily Pilot and Coastline Pilot will no longer be delivered to the driveways of non-subscribers on Fridays, as they are now.
“We want to zero in on our loyal subscriber base, so that means minimizing samples,” Canalis said. “Non-subscribers can still read a finite number of stories online for free every month to see if they want a print or digital subscription.”
With the increased focus on the coastal areas, the Daily Pilot will no longer be delivered two days a week in Irvine, as it is now, but the paper will continue its tradition of covering UC Irvine news, sports and arts.
The expanded Pilot will not reach all of coastal Orange County. Times Community News has an existing advertising-sharing relationship with Picket Fence Media — publisher of the San Clemente Times, Capistrano Dispatch and Dana Point Times — that it plans to strengthen, said Marissa Contreras, advertising sales manager for The Times in Orange County.
The expansion of the Daily Pilot is the latest investment The Times has made in Orange County in the past year.
TimesOC, a website and email newsletter focused solely on Orange County, launched in June. Weekend, which provides lifestyle and entertainment coverage to all print and digital subscribers in Orange County, started a little over a year ago.
Daily Pilot History
1907: M.H. Swain launches the weekly Newport News on $700 in city funds
1934: Len Martin creates Costa Mesa Globe-Herald
1955: Globe-Herald moves to 330 W. Bay St. in Costa Mesa
1959: Newport Harbor Pilot debuts, using named purchased from Seal Beach paper
1962: Times Mirror Co. buys Orange Coast Daily Pilot
1983: Times Mirror Co. sells Orange Coast Daily Pilot
1993: Times Mirror Co. buys Daily Pilot back and packages it with Los Angeles Times
2004: Daily Pilot moves from Bay St. to 1375 Sunflower Ave. in Costa Mesa
2014: Daily Pilot moves to 10540 Talbert Ave. in Fountain Valley
2016: Daily Pilot resumes circulation in Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach and Seal Beach