LOS ANGELES (AP) — Freedom Communications Inc. said Monday
that it has set April 16 as the launch date for its latest newspaper
venture, the Los Angeles Register.
The new publication is part of
an ambitious expansion driven by Aaron Kushner and Eric Spitz, who
bought Freedom in 2012. The pair bulked up on newsroom staff at the
Orange County Register, launched a new daily newspaper in Long Beach in
August and bought the Press-Enterprise in Riverside in October.
It’ll
be the first incursion for the newspaper company into the heart of the
metropolis long dominated by the 132-year-old Los Angeles Times. So far,
Freedom has been focused on the suburbs.
Freedom said Monday that
the "community building" newspaper will cost $1.50 on weekdays and $2
on Saturday and Sunday and be distributed at 7,500 locations around Los
Angeles County. That’s roughly the same price as the Times, which costs
$1.50 Monday through Saturday and $2 on Sunday.
People who sign up
for a daily subscription, which Freedom said will cost less than $1 per
day, will be enrolled in Register Connect, a benefits program that
includes free tickets to baseball and soccer games on a first-come,
first-served basis.
Long Beach Register subscribers will also get free copies of the Los Angeles Register, the company said.

Freedom
also said it will launch more than a dozen monthly newspapers serving
specific towns along the coast and as far east as Pomona, about 30 miles
from Los Angeles. It said details on the monthlies will be available in
the coming weeks.
The Los Angeles Register will aim to cover
daily local news, business, politics, education and other topics, along
with sports at the high school, college and professional level.
It
plans to serve as a government watchdog and provider of inspiring
features, as well as a forum for opinions on local issues. Columnists
"will clearly support the protection of individual liberties and
freedoms," it said.
The company is making a big bet on print even
as print ad sales and circulation drop industrywide. Kushner has said
the printed product still accounts for 90 percent of a typical newspaper
company’s revenue but has been neglected as publishers chase after the
elusive dollars that accompany online distribution.
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