AltadenaPoint Publisher Announces It Will Cease Publication April 10

AltadenaPoint publisher Timothy Rutt announced Thursday that his eight-year-old online publication, Altadena’s best-read dedicated online news source, will officially cease publication on April 10.

“We have set a final date of publication: April 10, 2015,” Rutt wrote. “There may be some stories filed that day, but that’s also going to be the last day.”

Rutt said the site will still be up for an indefinite period of time — “it is costing us $200 a month to run, so the plug will be pulled as soon as we can manage.”

Earlier, Rutt had explained to the community why the site would close.

“There are several reasons,” Rutt had written, “but a major one is math: in the past several months we’ve lost a significant number of advertisers, and advertising revenue is the lifeblood of this publication —it can’t live without it. With no other advertisers stepping into the wings, publishing AltadenaPoint at the current level of revenue is unsustainable.”

For the years that Rutt published AltadenaPoint, which was originally published as Altadena Blog, his intrepid coverage was fast and timely and the best source of hyperlocal news for Altadenans in a town ignored by other media.

His website became a focal point for citizens reporting neighborhood goings. Many of Rutt’s original stories were “crowdsourced” by resident reporters who helped him keep Altadena informed.

Rutt said AltadenaPoint has ” barely broken even at the best of times” but had reached a critical point this year.

He cited said that although AltadenaPoint  had promoted and supported the town’s new businesses, those companies had not advertised with his publication but rather with Pasadena media instead.

“In addition, a significant number of (former) advertisers have reneged on their bills for advertising that has already run, and that has adversely affected our bottom line,” Rutt wrote.

“So thank you for allowing us almost eight wonderful years of being Altadena’s voice. This was something new and, it turns out, something Altadena needed. But all good things must end,” Rutt had written.