LA Times to deliver OC Register

The Orange County (Calif.) Register will be delivered to homes and vending machines by the Los Angeles Times starting in September, the two newspapers announced last week.
The distribution agreement is a bid to give the Register seven-figure savings in payroll and warehousing costs each year, said Larry Riley, vice president of circulation and distribution.
Through the deal, the Register will become the Times’ largest commercial delivery contract.
The change will impact 721 independent contractors who currently deliver The Register and approximately 55 full-time and 143 part-time workers, who will be laid off, Riley said.
“We are facing challenges and we have to find efficiencies,” he said.
The Times will distribute the Register and its weekly publications to subscribers, Riley said. Separately, the Register contracts with a third-party firm to deliver the weeklies to non-subscriber households, and that arrangement will continue.
The deal comes on the heels of the publishers’ announcement of plans to launch OCSaver/Local Values, a joint advertising insert, beginning Aug. 27-29 (see Dateline, July 27, 2009).