THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050497
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 44 lines
The Norfolk Weekly Register, a 10-page broadsheet that rolled off the presses for the first time last summer, has folded.
Editor and Publisher William T. Prince Jr. said this week that he lacked money and backing to keep going until advertising picked up.
But the little weekly already had racked up a following of nearly 600 subscribers, Prince said.
``Everything was on target. I personally didn't have enough money to last a year. I was just simply undercapitalized, underestimated how long advertisers would take. . . . But we had almost 10 percent of a core area of west Norfolk. On the grass-roots level, we had a lot of steam.''
Prince, 33, said he circulated 10,000 copies of each of 12 editions.
The last edition was published Dec. 18. On Jan. 8, Prince sent letters to subscribers advising them of his decision to call it quits and offering them rebates. About 100 took him up on it, but many told him to keep the money, said Prince.
Dr. John Lapetina was one of those who refused a refund. The 73-year-old Ocean View resident said this week that he misses the newspaper already.
``I think it was a good independent paper. I think we need something like that in this city. It took the little issues that The Virginian-Pilot might overlook - the hometown issues. . . .''
Lapetina drew a parallel with the now-defunct Ocean View Times, another alternative newspaper that had a relatively short life. The Times got off the ground in 1986, and five years later Editor and Publisher James E. Dozier was strapped for operating funds and ready to sell. He sold the paper more than a year ago, and its name changed - but it is no longer published.
The Weekly Register featured weather columns by Dr. Duane Harding, who was fired from WTKR-TV a year ago to the dismay of his fans. Harding was one of the features folks liked best, Prince said.
Richard McCleary, another Weekly Register subscriber, said he'd miss ``Dr. Duane. . . . He's folksy but informative.''
``I'm sorry it didn't succeed,'' said McCleary, a 71-year-old Colonial Place resident. ``I know how hard it is to get something alternative going.''
Prince, a former reporter and editor, said he's casting about for something else to do, though he hasn't given up hope that he'll find a backer for the newspaper.