After months of promises, more than a few billboards and a handful of media thinkpieces about the expansion, the California Post arrived this week in California. Well, some of California.
The new, daily print publication from News Corp, the Rupert Murdoch-owned media conglomerate that also operates Fox News and the New York Post, arrived to bright red fanfare and free bagels in Los Angeles this week. The publication, which like its East Coast counterpart will likely be a more tabloid-style offering in the marketplace rather than a broad, down-the-middle newspaper, aims to speak directly to California conservatives and disaffected liberals ready to hear a new voice on city politics or Gavin Newsom’s hair.
The problem, as it turns out, is actually reaching those conservatives.
Despite near-nonstop posting about the paper’s daily printed editions that can be delivered right to doorsteps, it turns out that the California Post isn’t physically available for millions of Californians. Dozens of different ZIP code attempts on the California Post’s subscription sign-up page show a scattershot availability for home delivery across the state. On the one hand, that makes sense: California is giant, complex and not easy to blanket for service providers of all sorts. The California Post is also less than a week old; it’s certainly possible its delivery networks will improve over time.
That said, some of the omissions are jarring. Home delivery for the California Post is not, for example, available in Sacramento, population 525,000, which also happens to be the state capital. It’s not available in Fresno (population: 542,000) either, or Bakersfield (population: 411,000), despite those Central Valley cities’ reputations as important, growing population centers. The Central Valley is also more politically mixed than much of the coast, and it’s easy to believe that the California Post could find a more willing audience in, say, Kern County than in Los Angeles.
Other regional pockets are missing from the California Post’s home delivery routes, too, like San Luis Obispo and Humboldt, and most of Temecula in the vast Inland Empire. San Diego, however, has access for daily home newspaper delivery, as do Santa Barbara and Palm Springs – and Orange County, naturally.
“At this time, we are continuously working on expanding our distribution network across California, including cities like Sacramento,” the California Post told SFGATE in a statement via its customer service line. “While we currently do not have a specific timeline for when daily print publications will be available in these areas, we can assure you that extending access to more cities is a priority for us as part of our larger roll-out plan.”
BEST OF SFGATE
Central Coast | ‘Doomsday fish’: Once-in-a-lifetime sea creature encountered in Monterey Bay
Technology| A Calif. teen trusted ChatGPT for drug advice. He died from an overdose.
Central Coast| He gifted Calif. one of its largest city parks. Then he shot his wife.
Culture | Tragedy cut Sublime’s fame short. Now the singer’s son has the mic.
Get SFGATE’s top stories sent to your inbox by signing up for The Daily newsletter here.
This article originally published at The California Post has arrived. Millions in the state can’t find it..