To cut costs, the Los Angeles Times announced on Thursday, 7 January 2010, plans to consolidate its print operations and shut down its Orange County printing facility. Eighty people will be laid-off. Another measure aimed at trimming costs will be the elimination of its stand-alone Business section on Mondays. On the other hand, a new section, LATExtra, will debut in February. It is devoted to late-breaking news and is meant to compensate for earlier deadlines resulting from the elimination of the plant.
According to information published by the US journal Newspapers & Technology, Tribune (owner of the L.A. Times) “spent more than $40 million in 2004 to upgrade the paper's presses, adding colour towers and making other modifications at three plants then operated by the daily. The first of the plants to close, in the San Fernando Valley, was shuttered in late 2005. Speculation had been growing over the past several months that the Orange County plant was next on the chopping block.”
