Free Daily Newspaper Goes Broke, Stops Publishing After 13 Months

Ventura Today, a free daily newspaper delivered to 18,500 Ventura homes, has ceased publication after 13 months.

The tabloid, which appeared Tuesdays through Saturdays, published its last edition on Saturday, said Steve Morris, president of the parent company, California Dailies Inc.

Morris said the demise of Ventura Today marks the end of a journalistic experiment: a free paper delivered to all single-family houses in a target area, dependent entirely on advertising revenue.

“There are papers doing that, but with street stands only, not home delivery,” Morris said, citing successful free dailies in Vail and Aspen, Colo. “If we had had two years, we probably could have done it.”

Morris said the paper cost about $15,000 a week to publish and was getting back about half that much in revenue. “It’s my fault for not raising enough capital,” Morris said. “We were making solid revenue gains.”

An outside audit found that 73% of the people who received the paper read it, Morris said. “The community was great to us. We couldn’t expect more out of them or our advertisers.”

Morris, a Ventura resident who formerly was publisher of the San Fernando Valley-based Daily News, said he has not decided what he will do next. The paper had a staff of 10, not counting carriers, and was printed by the Ojai Valley News.

Executive Editor Curtis Robinson said the staff received no advance warning that the paper would close. “The shock is still setting in,” he said.

Morris said the paper, which ranged from 16 to 28 pages, tried to fill a gap in coverage that resulted as other dailies adopted a regional focus. For example, Ventura Today published the entire agendas of the Ventura City Council and County Board of Supervisors.

The paper, which subscribed to United Press International news service, also published summaries of state, national and world news, daily television listings, three comic strips and a stock market report.

“I think on the editorial side, we did a really good job for a small paper,” said Robinson, who supervised two news reporters and a sports writer.

With the paper’s closing, Robinson said, “there’s one less voice out there . . . one less person that might come up with something the public needs to know about.

“I think what people will miss most,” Robinson said, “is the kind of attention we paid to issues both before and after the larger papers picked them up . . . they’ll miss the localness of it.

“They’ll also miss it being free, I think. Certainly the price was right.”