Digital First Media to Acquire Orange County Register

Freedom Communications will sell the Orange County Register to Digital First Media after a judge blocked a $56 million bid by Tribune Publishing, a Freedom attorney said March 19. Freedom is the troubled owner of the Orange County Register and Press-Enterprise of Riverside (CA). Freedom will ask a federal bankruptcy judge to confirm and approve the sale to Digital First. Digital First owns the Los Angeles Daily News and eight other daily papers in the greater Los Angeles (CA) area. In total, Digital First Media operates more than 800 multi-platform products include web, mobile, tablet and print. Freedom attorney William Lobel said in an e-mail that he expects the deal will close before the end of March. Digital First was the runner-up bidder for Freedom at $45.5 million.