Commentary

Canadian Newspapers Reeling From Bad News

Don’t look now, but the Canadian newspaper industry is quietly, politely imploding, with a wave of layoffs, dropped print editions, and outright closures across the Great White North.  

Last week, the country’s biggest newspaper publisher, Postmedia Network Canada Corp., said it would cut 90 jobs as part of a plant to merge newsroom staffs in cities where it owns more than one newspaper, including 60 in the province of Alberta, affecting the newsrooms of the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun and Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun.

The cuts, including top editors at the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun, are equal to 3% of the company’s total 2,826 employees and 8% of its editorial staff.

Earlier this month, Montreal’s La Presse stopped publishing the weekday print edition of its newspaper, replacing it with a digital edition optimized for tablets, and laid off around 160 employees across all its divisions, including editorial, production and distribution.

The move reflects a change already underway among its readers. La Presse has more than 450,000 tablet readers versus just over 105,000 print readers on weekdays, and derives around 60% of its ad revenue from tablet editions.

Also this month, The Toronto Star laid off around 300 employees, most in its production division, as part of a move to outsource the printing of the newspaper.

Some smaller newspapers are nixing print altogether.

This month, Metroland Media Group announced that the Guelph Mercury, a local newspaper serving the city of 120,000 in Ontario, will cease publishing a print edition, with all 26 of its employees laid off. The newspaper will continue to have a presence online, but without any employees, it’s not clear whether any of the content will be locally relevant.

Cross-ountry, the Nanaimo Daily News, on Vancouver Island, also announced that it will cease publication on January 29 after 141 years in business, with all 10 staff members laid off.

Elsewhere in the Canadian media world, TV and radio broadcaster and magazine publisher Rogers Media said it is cutting 200 jobs across its various divisions, equal to about 4% of the total work force. Back in November, another Canadian broadcast TV group, Bell Media, revealed plans to lay off 380 employees.
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