LA Times’ Last Reader Cancels Subscription; Paper Folds

“It’s time to end this miserable charade,” L.A. Times owner Sam Zell told a hastily assembled Beverly Hills news conference. “The Los Angeles Times has lost its last subscriber. As they say in Hollywood, it’s a wrap.”

Zell bought the Times last year and when the circulation was still over 1,000,000 readers daily. The collapse of the southern California real estate market, an important source of advertising, combined with the slowing national economy, led to a gradual loss of all subscribers since the beginning of 2008.

“It’s too bad, because it’s a really good paper,” Zell said. “It’s been a tough year. First we had to lay off all but two reporters, one for general news and one for sports. Then we had to reprint real estate sections from two years ago, with the prices marked down considerably, just to make the paper look thick enough.

“Then we had to lay off all our drivers, except the one who had our last subscriber, who was out in Rancho Cucamonga. Every morning, that poor bastard had to drive all the way to that place, wherever the hell it is, maybe out by Lake Elsinore. Going out was easy, because he was leaving at four in the morning. But the ride home was horrible, because he was in rush hour traffic. But what are you gonna do? That subscriber was the last of our revenue.”

Zell said the LATimes.com website would remain available, although readers would now be free to post stories “like on that new website, Wikipedia. If you find out about a traffic jam, let us know. One thing you can count on—you won’t be breathing exhaust from our trucks any longer. It’s the end of an era.”

The L.A. Times’ final subscriber, Everett Holcumb of 16215 Sandford Lane, Rancho Cucamonga, told the Dissociated Press, "I had no idea I was the last one. I liked the paper a lot. It's just that the delivery guy kept throwing it under my car."