Gentlemen,
I was hoping you could take a minute away from your morning break of drinking the blood of unclaimed babies to read this tip I believe you will find most helpful.
I am a staff writer at OC Weekly, an Orange County newspaper that was the recipient of letters from you dating back to our early days insisting that we stop using the phrase “Best of OC” because, in your opinion, it created market confusion with your “Best of Orange County” brand.
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Before the current ownership took over our alternative newsweekly, we would mock and otherwise ignore these letters. Our former “Lost in O.C.” columnist, Jim Washburn, even wrote a piece chiding the Register for taking this stand. We believed at the time you did not have a case.
Well, when our new owners came in, they assured us only lawyers would win if we had to find out if you had a case, so we have since dropped “Best of OC” and now name those extra-special issues after the year it appears. (Make sure to grab a copy of our Best of 2014 issue coming in October!)
Now that I have refreshed your memories, I need to point out that KCBS, the Los Angeles-based television station, has a tab on its website labeled “OC.” When you click on it, you are not led to links of news stories from Orange County but rather their “Best of Orange County” listings of what they have deemed the best Orange County businesses, products and attractions.
Take a look for yourselves:
Having found religion on “Best of OC,” we are certain that the KCBS “Best of Orange County” certainly creates even more market confusion with the Orange County Register's “Best of Orange County.” Even some of the categories are the same as your own!
All we request is that you cc' us a copy of the cease and desist letter you are drafting right now to KCBS because we would like to frame it next to the one you sent us that now hangs in our break room. OK, that's a lie: We don't get breaks here …
As for the tip, you are very welcome!
Sincerely,
Matt Coker
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.