Register to Cut Back Community Edition : Lack of Ads Seen as Reason for Slashing Weekly Paper Circulation

The Orange County Register is on the verge of slashing circulation of its weekly community edition by more than 50%, abandoning direct mail of the tabloid to about 370,000 residences because of insufficient advertising, sources said Friday.

If approved by the paper’s management, the circulation cut will end an ambitious 4-year-old program to build the Register’s circulation by blanketing 80% of Orange County households with the localized tabloid.

The Community Edition was designed to appeal to advertisers and potential subscribers by highlighting local news in 17 different editions. It was touted as a way for advertisers to divide the county into as many as 32 different areas.

But in a special meeting with members of the Community Edition staff on Thursday, N. Christian Anderson, the Register’s editor, said readers think of the tabloid’s free, mailed copies as “junk mail,” according to sources who attended the meeting. Anderson assured the staffers that their jobs are secure, one source said. But Anderson said the Register is considering folding the 17 editions into just seven. Executives also were looking into making the Community Edition more timely and giving it a new look--at full newspaper size--with a new, undecided name, Anderson reportedly said.

But the most drastic change discussed by Anderson, sources said, was the potential elimination of an estimated 375,000 copies of the Community Edition. The 312,000 copies of the tabloid that are currently folded into the Register’s regular editions would continue to be published.

Anderson reportedly told the staff that newspaper executives were to decide by Monday whether the changes would be made. Any changes would, ideally, be made within a month, the sources said.

But one inside source said staff members believe that the slashed circulation and other changes are “about 99.9% certain.” Otherwise, Anderson--who rarely visits the Community Edition’s five bureaus--”wouldn’t come out to tell us” about the plans, said a source who asked not to be named.

Anderson refused comment Friday, saying, “I can’t speak on behalf of the newspaper.” Other executives either could not be reached or declined to comment.

The Santa Ana-based Orange County Register is the flagship of the Freedom Newspaper empire, the nation’s 14th largest chain. Its daily circulation as of Dec. 31 was listed at 312,204 in a recent Audit Bureau of Circulation report. Dick Wallace, the Register’s general manager, said Friday that the paper’s paid daily circulation now is 314,300.

Plagued by Problems

But the Community Edition reportedly has been plagued by problems since the beginning. Staffers have long complained about poor pay, high turnover and low morale.

What impact the circulation cut--if implemented--will have on the Register’s ad revenues was uncertain late last week. “The Community Edition has been a good vehicle” for advertisers, said Pete Craig, account supervisor with Marsh/Focus Media, an Irvine-based ad agency. “We’re waiting for further details.”

But at last week’s meeting, Anderson reportedly told staff members that the paper’s sales staff has been unable to sell much advertising in the weekly. He said, according to a source, that a Register study has shown that readers don’t know what the tabloid is.

Meanwhile, an official with the U.S. Post Office in San Francisco, George Sacco, said Friday that postal authorities are conducting an audit to determine whether the Register meets standards for second-class mailing status. Such audits are routinely done, Sacco said. The standards include a requirement that at least 50% of the recipients must have requested delivery of the community Register.

Postal and Register sources said that if second-class privileges are revoked, it would cost the Register an additional $90,000 if the mailings were to continue.