The Ever Changing Los Angeles Times

Just over four weeks ago the Los Angeles Times made many significant changes in the way the news would be presented to the subscribers, which has many readers abandoning the newspaper. The California Section publishing frequency was decreased from seven days per week to Sunday’s only, with local news merged into the main section of the newspaper.

Unfortunately one of the side affects of letting so many go in the editorial department has been an ever-increasing error rate, which only seems to be accelerating daily.

On March 11, 2009 I suggested the Los Angeles Times was headed to a four day a week publication, which certainly appears to be the direction the newspaper is trending in as the circulation numbers change.

On March 9th circulation for the Monday thru Wednesday Los Angeles Times was pegged at 637,000 copies, but has fallen by 40,000 on April 6th, 2009 to 597,000. My friends in Manila, Philippines shared with me they save one of three subscribers that would like to cancel their subscriptions, moving them to the Thursday thru Sunday delivery option. (The Los Angeles Times outsourced subscriber services to the Philippines)

Many colleagues find this hard to believe, but here are the facts: The circulation jumps from 597,000 copies the first three days of the week to 863,000 copies beginning on Thursday of each week.

I will revisit the circulation numbers on May 4th and see if this trend has slowed or accelerated?