Daily Pilot to expand Irvine coverage by one day

The Daily Pilot will add a day of print circulation in Irvine beginning this week.

The newspaper will now be included with copies of the Los Angeles Times delivered to Irvine ZIP codes on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The newspaper previously was delivered in Irvine only on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Pilot will be available to readers who receive Times home delivery, as well as in newspaper racks and at retail locations, such as supermarkets and coffee shops.

Five-day-a-week delivery will continue in the Pilot’s core market, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, Wednesdays through Sundays. The paper is included in The Times in Newport-Mesa and also is available at free racks.

Irvine coverage started with single-day coverage in 2010.

“We’ve seen a gradual increase in interest for our news stories in Irvine in the last four years,” said Daily Pilot Editor John Canalis. “We started with one day, added a second and now we’re doing a third. If this goes well we may add more days in the future, but we’ll need to see if the demand is there.”

Irvine stories will continue to be published seven days a week online.

The Pilot covers Irvine city government, business, entertainment and lifestyle. The newspaper has long reported on UC Irvine sports but does not have plans at present to cover high school sports, except when Irvine teams play those from Newport, Corona del Mar or Costa Mesa.

Canalis said the added day was driven by reader response.

“We’ve gotten surprisingly strong feedback for our coverage in Irvine, particularly online, where we’re able to easily measure the interest,” he said. “But we’re also receiving a good amount of traditional feedback, such as letters to the editor, phone calls, emails and requests for coverage.”

Based in Costa Mesa, the Daily Pilot is part of Los Angeles Times Community News, which also publishes two weeklies, the Huntington Beach Independent and the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot, and three community papers in Los Angeles County.