LOS ANGELES, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Los Angeles Times announced today that it is consolidating production at three of its most modern and efficient facilities in downtown Los Angeles, Costa Mesa and Irwindale and closing its Chatsworth plant. The consolidation will not affect publication of any of The Times' five editions, including the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County editions, or the products and services offered to readers and advertisers. "We deeply regret the impact this consolidation will have on employees, but the reality is that The Times has invested $500 million to modernize and build new facilities and expand color capacity since the Chatsworth plant became operational in 1983," said Mark H. Kurtich, Times senior vice president, Operations. "The three more modern plants are fully capable of handling the current and future needs of Times readers and advertisers." With 11 presses in the downtown Los Angeles and Costa Mesa plants coupled with the production facilities in Irwindale, The Times will continue to have one of the largest investments in newspaper production facilities in the country. The closing of the Chatsworth plant will result in the elimination of approximately 110 positions from across the newspaper's production facilities. The Times will seek to accomplish as many of the reductions as possible through a voluntary separation package. It is expected that the transition to the downtown Los Angeles and Costa Mesa facilities will be completed in the first quarter of 2006. Following this transition, The Times will begin the process of selling the 250,000-square-foot facility situated on 26 acres of land. The Times, a Tribune Publishing company, is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country and the winner of 37 Pulitzer Prizes, including two this year. The Times publishes five daily regional editions, for the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Orange County, Ventura County, the San Fernando Valley, and the Inland Empire of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as a National edition. The Times' website, http://www.latimes.com/, features 50,000 content pages, and is updated continuously with more than 3,000 stories posted daily. Latimes.com's award-winning arts and entertainment section, calendarlive.com, offers an extensive range of entertainment news reviews and Southern California's most comprehensive event listing. The Times also produces The Envelope, http://www.theenvelope.com/, the entertainment industry's most comprehensive, year-round awards show website. Additional information about The Times is available at http://www.latimes.com/mediacenter. DATASOURCE: The Los Angeles Times CONTACT: David Garcia, +1-213-237-4715, , or Martha Goldstein, +1-213-237-3727, , both of The Los Angeles Times Web site: http://www.latimes.com/mediacenter Web site: http://www.theenvelope.com/ Web site: http://www.calendarlive.com/ Web site: http://www.latimes.com/

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