The OCR files for bankruptcy

The great throw-money-at-the-problem-of-declining-readership experiment has failed as Aaron Kushner is being replaced.

O.C. Register owner files for bankruptcy protection; CEO's group plans bid

 

Freedom said advertisers and subscribers “will not be impacted by the reorganization.”

 

The employees, meanwhile ...

 

The place tried to revive people and ideas that shouldn't have been revived. I don't begrudge people wanting to get a paycheck and keep working, but at what point do you look around and say: "Does this have any chance of succeeding long-term?"

 

What jumped out to me was Kushner spent $40 million in two years.
And, OCR rushed into bankruptcy ... again ... because it lost a $600,000+ lawsuit to a print supply company. That verdict came Thursday.


Orange County Register Declares Bankrupcty, be Bought By...Mike Harrah?!

 

I'm going to play the other side here and say the idea of an expanded print edition was a good one. If you're paying $1 or $1.50, you should at least get something for your money.

The problem was in the execution. Print isn't necessarily dead. It can be kept going with the right ideas. You have to have an equally strong emphasis on print and digital in this day and age.

 

A lot of people at OCR are still wondering if it could have worked had Kushner not started the Los Angeles Register and the Long Beach Register ... if he concentrated on OCR and then, maybe, Riverside. He sunk a ton of money into those without understanding how to promote them and get them delivered. Nobody saw those products. And he depleted OCR resources to staff and fund those two failed publications.

 

Maybe Eli Broad and Beutner will buy it to stick a thumb in the eye of the Trib folks...and make their standing LAT offer a bit more attractive.

 

Agreed. Hopefully people don't hold up what happened at the OCR as an example of why one shouldn't invest in print without recognizing the full context of what happened, but that requires more trust in newspaper execs than I have.