O.C. Register to lay off 110 workers

The Orange County Register will lay off about 110 employees by the end of the week, Register Publisher Terry Horne announced today.

The workers, who are being notified today and Thursday, will receive the company’s standard severance package of two weeks’ pay for every year of service, Horne said. State law for layoffs of 50 people or more also requires employers to provide the workers with two-months’ pay or two-months notice of layoff.

Horne said the layoffs were part of an on-going effort to tailor the newspaper’s business model to a media environment that has been hard hit by a loss of employment, auto and real estate advertising; a drop in readership; a sour economy and increased competition from the Internet.

“This isn’t necessarily just to improve profitability, we have to become a different kind of company,” Horne said. “We will be more focused on Interactive and make more of an effort in the print business.”

Newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, have been cutting staff as they try to adjust to the new financial realities of publishing.

Horne said he didn’t plan any immediate changes in the Register similar to those earlier in the year, when the company eliminated the stand-alone Marketplace section six days a week. The company, however, will continue to focus on news in Orange County that readers cannot get anywhere else, he said.

This is the Register’s fourth round of layoffs this year. The company also had layoffs in August 2007 and a voluntary severance program to cut staff in 2006. This latest layoff, which includes about 30 in the newsroom, will leave Orange County Register Communications with a staff of about 1,230, Horne said.

Horne said that while the company is facing challenging times, there are some areas of success. Online advertising, excluding employment, was up 69.3% over last year, he said. Revenues from direct mail were up 16%, Horne said. The Register is privately owned and does not release financial information.

Although the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported that the Register’s circulation declined to 236,270 daily (down 15%) and 298,410 (down 8.2%) in the year ended Sept. 30, Horne said most of it was a deliberate reduction in papers distributed to hotels, schools and other bulk delivery that is not valued by advertisers.

Home delivery, which is highly valued by advertisers, basically remained flat for the six months ended in September. Circulation on Thursday through Sunday, which are the biggest advertising days, rose 0.6%, Horne said.