R.I.P, Orange County Register

Last year, the parent company of the Orange County Register, Freedom Communications, launched this fishwrap to reach a younger demographic since the Reg's core readership was born around the Roosevelt administration (Teddy, not FDR). This followed in the wake of the paper's continuing advertising campaign featuring young, beautiful things. The hipster grab still isn't working, apparently, 'cause now the Reg announces yet another reach for the youngsters. The Orange County Post debuts August 21 and will offer shorter versions of Register articles–a Cliff Notes approach to the Cliff Notes of Southern California publishing. According to publisher N. Christian Anderson III, the Post comes because Reg focus groups demand it: “They are very, very busy – a lot of them have young families – but they are interested in the community and want information about their community. We are designing a product that gives them a single source of information.”

A couple of questions: why does the Register keep cannibalizing itself? Register staffers hate Squeeze OC for depriving its mother paper of resources–how will they react to another welfare paper in the family? I can read the entire Register from “The Morning Read to In the Bleachers in about 15 minutes (and that's if I don't read Mickadeit–if I do, add an extra minute)–how long will it take to read the Post? Finally: the Register has long dumped hundreds of copies on unsuspecting area schools in an effort to promote literacy–is the Post designed so Freedom Communication can monopolize the Elmo's World crowd?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *