O.C. Register to drop daily business section

The Orange County Register is killing its daily stand-alone business news section, the latest sign of the financial pressures affecting U.S. newspapers.

Business news will be carried inside the paper’s main news section Monday through Saturday, effective Jan. 30, the Register reported on its website Monday, and the Monday business tabloid will be discontinued after next week’s edition.

Stock and mutual fund listings will “largely be eliminated,” the paper reported.

A stand-alone business section still will be published on Sundays.

Newspapers across the country have been cutting back on newsroom costs as readers and advertisers migrate to the Internet. Many papers, including the Los Angeles Times, have significantly reduced stock market listings in recent years, although the Register apparently will be the nation’s largest paper without a separate daily business section.

In published remarks, Register Publisher Terry Horne said the cutbacks were “driven by a need to be more efficient in the type of news we publish in our newspaper versus online.”

It wasn’t clear whether the moves would result in any staffing changes. Horne couldn’t be reached for comment.

The Register, which had daily circulation of 284,613 as of Sept. 30, also reported that it was creating six geographically zoned versions of its local news section to provide more localized news coverage and advertising exposure.

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martin.zimmerman @latimes.com