As other publishers prepare for a digital-only future,
Kushner adds staff and expands his newspaper. This week he launched the Long
Beach Register. Over the last year, the Orange County Register has been
furiously paddling against a riptide that has newspapers around the country
laying off journalists, shrinking coverage and in some cases cutting back home
delivery. The Register has doubled the number of reporters and editors to 350
and fattened the paper by adding 22 weekly sections. On a recent Tuesday, it
had 72 pages while the Los Angeles Times had 42. The Register's parent company,
Freedom Communications Inc. in Irvine, has expanded its 26 weekly community
newspapers and turned two into five-day-a-week operations. On Monday, it
launched the Long Beach Register in a community wedded for so long to its
hometown paper, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, that previous incursions by the
Register and the Los Angeles Times fell flat. And, according to industry
sources, Freedom is negotiating to buy the Press-Enterprise in Riverside County.
Behind these surprising investments is a 40-year-old former greeting-card
executive named Aaron Kushner, who acquired Freedom a year ago. As other
publishers prepare for a digital-only future, Kushner is betting heavily on
print, confident that intensely local — and often upbeat — news will attract
advertisers. It's a bold experiment that media executives around the country
are watching closely. Many believe that it defies the economic realities of a
business whose readers and advertisers are increasingly abandoning print and
going online.In an interview, Kushner declined to provide details of his
company's financial performance. But he said his contrarian strategy is already
showing promise.
"We were profitable last year," said Kushner,
Freedom's chief executive. "We will be profitable this year, profitable
next year and profitable the following year. Every controllable category of
advertising is up, and circulation revenue is up." Kushner's message to the Register staff has been less
upbeat. He told employees this month that the company's financial performance
had fallen short of expectations for the second quarter. As of January, Freedom
stopped matching employees' 401(k) contributions. "Clearly digital is going to be important, but Kushner
understands that right now 90% of revenue and 100% of profit comes off the
newsprint."
