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The final issue of the Long Beach Register appeared Sunday. You might remember that the paper was originally described as the Orange County Register's opening salvo in an expected invasion of Los Angeles County by the libertarians from over the county line. The daily Los Angeles Register came and went this year, and now the Long Beach Register — which lasted 16 months, the last six chopped down to a weekly — has rolled up and gone back home too. Like with the LA Register, you probably didn't notice it was there so you won't miss the Long Beach edition, but there was a staff and a strategy behind the operation.
"The Register, which looked like a threat, then was an annoyance, then was a joke and now is gone,” newspaper analyst Ken Doctor said in a story in the rival Press-Telegram. The P-T is a Los Angeles News Group paper. Although Aaron Kushner encouraged talk that the Register's expansion into LA County was about taking on the Times, the real business target was the readers and communities served by the LANG papers. Noted: They all survive.
Staff photographer Jeff Gritchen posted a 14-minute video memorializing the Register's experiment in Long Beach.
Previously on LA Observed:
Kushner pulls the plug on LA Register 'effective immediately'
Kushner's Register play: 'Many people think we are a little crazy'
Register formally announces Long Beach expansion
