Steve Bentz

President, La Opinión and SVP Advertising, Impremedia

Steve Bentz joined La Opinión in June of 2009 as SVP Advertising for the paper and was promoted to the position of president in June, 2010. As president, Bentz is responsible for management of La Opinión, overseeing all strategic and operational initiatives for the newspaper. He is also responsible for developing and executing integrated sales strategies that connect the advertising community to La Opinión’s audiences across all platforms.

Prior to joining La Opinión, Steve was vice president of advertising for the Los Angeles Times.  He has held key positions in the project management, circulation, finance, operations, packaging and advertising departments.

[CA 0101] - Part 1: Intro and Contribution (2:12)

Steve Bentz, president, La Opinión, started at the newspaper in June 2009. Bentz says La Opinión serves “a special community” by offering a classic function: “sitting in City Hall” and “watching lawmakers.”

[CA 0102] - Part 2: Strategic Changes (3:24)

Steve Bentz, president, La Opinión, says, La Opinión has reduced its overhead by “outsourcing its trucks and its presses.” The Orange County Register now prints the newspaper. Bentz says the newspaper “is in transition in all departments.” A recent reduction in circulation was largely “self induced,” says Bentz. The newspaper, which is sold exclusively in racks and over the counter, intentionally shrank its distribution to save costs, and boosted the newspaper’s price from $0.25 to $0.50. Now, says Bentz, “We’ve got to grow again” and “we’re getting racks back out.”

[CA 0103] - Part 3: Adaptation & the Future (6:16)

Steve Bentz, president, La Opinión, says the Hispanic community shows great potential for expanded digital engagement with La Opinión. The Hispanic community “over indexes [shows greater participation than the average] in mobile,” says Bentz. “They are engaging socially – downloading music, sharing photos,” according to Bentz. So, La Opinión is aiming to find a way to reach this community through enhanced mobile news and information products.

[CA 0104] - Part 4: Digital Revenues & Prospects (3:18)

Steve Bentz, president, La Opinión, says digital revenues will not be sufficient to finance a news operation comparable to its current print-financed staff “in the near future.” “For most newspapers [digital revenues account for] 10-12% of total revenue,” says Bentz, and that’s the same for La Opinión. As for the future, Bentz says the Hispanic market, in the USA, is about 50 million people. “That’s a number to reckon with,” says Bentz.