The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Postmedia To Stop Printed Verson Of Monday Newspapers In Some Cities

RadioActive · September 21, 2022 3:59 pm

In another sign of the times, some of the biggest newspapers in Canada will no longer run through the printing presses in select cities, as Postmedia decides it's not worth putting out a Monday edition. That will reduce the output of papers including The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Montreal Gazette, The Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal. Toronto is not on the list for now.

Of course, the publisher admits the change won't lower costs for subscribers, because the full content will still be available online on Mondays, along with the rest of the week. (I guess there was no chance they would give paying customers a break, delivering less product for the same price.)

The change starts on Oct. 17th, as the newspaper industry continues to run red ink. Well, at least that would make the copy stand out better!

Stop the presses: Postmedia stops production of Monday newspapers in several cities

Hansa · September 21, 2022 4:32 pm

RadioActive wrote:
. Toronto is not on the list for now.

The National Post hasn't print)

That no one seems to have noticed its absence says a lot.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/national-post-monday-1.4167247

Last edited by Hansa (September 21, 2022 4:33 pm)

AspectRatio · September 21, 2022 5:11 pm

Hansa wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
. Toronto is not on the list for now.
The National Post hasn't print)

Truncated sentence? What was the rest of the thought?

Hansa · September 21, 2022 5:18 pm

AspectRatio wrote:
Hansa wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
. Toronto is not on the list for now.
The National Post hasn't print)
Truncated sentence? What was the rest of the thought?

My damned phone-

The National Post hasn't printed a Monday edition since 2017 and it seems no one has noticed (they still publish online on Mondays).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/national-post-monday-1.4167247

Last edited by Hansa (September 21, 2022 5:19 pm)

RadioActive · September 21, 2022 5:29 pm

You're right. I'd completely forgotten about that, but I do recall now that it was mentioned here at the time. You can tell I'm not a Post subscriber!

Radio Bob · September 21, 2022 6:17 pm

No Monday paper has been in the norm in some of the smaller Northern Ontario cities for a while. Just recently, though, it was extended. Now, for instance, the Timmins DAILY Press only prints hard copies on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Last edited by Radio Bob (September 21, 2022 6:17 pm)

Paul Jeffries · September 21, 2022 6:54 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Of course, the publisher admits the change won't lower costs for subscribers, because the full content will still be available online on Mondays, along with the rest of the week. (I guess there was no chance they would give paying customers a break, delivering less product for the same price.)

Kind of like when newspapers starting shrinking the size of the newsprint and spun it as being in a "new, easier-to-read format".

PJ

RadioActive · September 21, 2022 7:06 pm

I have old copies of both the Star and the Sun from way back in the 70s. I recently took them out to look at them and I could not believe how big they were, not in terms of pages - although there were more of those - but just the actual size of the paper itself. You could almost fit two of today's regular papers side-by-side over just one of those old ones. You really don't realize it until you see them together.

Paul Jeffries · September 21, 2022 9:27 pm

RadioActive wrote:
I have old copies of both the Star and the Sun from way back in the 70s. I recently took them out to look at them and I could not believe how big they were, not in terms of pages - although there were more of those - but just the actual size of the paper itself. You could almost fit two of today's regular papers side-by-side over just one of those old ones. You really don't realize it until you see them together.

And the weekend editions of many newspapers were almost half as thick as a phone book. Nowadays you can barely tell the difference between the weekend and weekday editions of most papers.

PJ

Tomas Barlow · September 22, 2022 12:51 am

There's no better way to push your small town newspaper toward irrelevance faster than waiting until Tuesday to tell your readers what happened on Saturday. Brilliant. But please, bash the CBC some more for the job they do.

That company can't die fast enough, in my opinion.

Radiowiz · September 22, 2022 7:13 am

Assuming they're just looking at numbers, are they saying that the Toronto Sun Monday edition sells too well to discontinue a print edition vs sales in Vancouver?

mace · September 22, 2022 10:55 am

RadioActive wrote:
I have old copies of both the Star and the Sun from way back in the 70s. I recently took them out to look at them and I could not believe how big they were, not in terms of pages - although there were more of those - but just the actual size of the paper itself. You could almost fit two of today's regular papers side-by-side over just one of those old ones. You really don't realize it until you see them together.

I recently saw a Toronto Star newspaper box with a copy of the paper on display. It didn't even fill the entire window area. It reminded me of watching an old television show with grey bars on either side of the screen.

Radiowiz · September 22, 2022 11:46 am

Ms. C. wrote:
Radiowiz wrote:
are they saying that the Toronto Sun Monday edition sells too well to discontinue a print edition

National Post and Globe & Mail are substantially business-oriented. Toronto Sun has a lot of sports content. All are well-aware of their readership

Vancouver Sun doesn't have a lot of sports content? What is Toronto Sun doing that isn't working in Vancouver for Vancouver's Sun? Why does Toronto get a Monday edition Sun but Vancouver does not?

LOSat · September 22, 2022 1:21 pm

The Vancouver Sun is not like the other Sun publications, it is considered a broadsheet publication like The Star, Globe or National Post. Although it is called Sun it is not the same as the other Sun papers that share it's name.

Hansa · September 22, 2022 2:47 pm

Radiowiz wrote:
Ms. C. wrote:
Radiowiz wrote:
are they saying that the Toronto Sun Monday edition sells too well to discontinue a print edition

National Post and Globe & Mail are substantially business-oriented. Toronto Sun has a lot of sports content. All are well-aware of their readership

Vancouver Sun doesn't have a lot of sports content? What is Toronto Sun doing that isn't working in Vancouver for Vancouver's Sun? Why does Toronto get a Monday edition Sun but Vancouver does not?

Although they are all now owned by Postmedia, the Vancouver Sun was never a Sun Media newspaper and so has never had the Sun tabloid format (it's always been a "serious" broadsheet paper) - having been founded in 1912, almost 60 years before the Toronto Sun was launched.

Last edited by Hansa (September 22, 2022 2:49 pm)

RadioActive · September 22, 2022 5:27 pm

Paul Jeffries wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
I have old copies of both the Star and the Sun from way back in the 70s. I recently took them out to look at them and I could not believe how big they were, not in terms of pages - although there were more of those - but just the actual size of the paper itself. You could almost fit two of today's regular papers side-by-side over just one of those old ones. You really don't realize it until you see them together.
And the weekend editions of many newspapers were almost half as thick as a phone book. Nowadays you can barely tell the difference between the weekend and weekday editions of most papers.

PJ

Anyone remember "The Canadian" that used to come with the Star's Saturday paper? It was also a large oversize weekly magazine. So big, in fact, that I couldn't scan the front cover below, from June 1971, in one pic.

cash · September 22, 2022 5:34 pm

No one will notice this

paterson1 · September 22, 2022 5:39 pm

I do remember this magazine. It was actually a Southam publication but since Toronto didn't have a Southam newspaper, the Toronto Star ran it in their big Saturday paper. The Canadian was to do battle with the Weekend Magazine that had been around since 1925 and founded by the Montreal Star. The Toronto Telegram had the Weekend Magazine in their Saturday paper for many years, prior to the Star running The Canadian which was founded around1964/65.

paterson1 · September 22, 2022 6:35 pm

Prior to The Canadian, the Star had the Star Weekly Magazine which was first published in 1910. During the war years the magazine was very patriotic and focused on Canada's participation in the allied forces...

MJ Vancouver · September 22, 2022 6:37 pm

The London Free Press hasn’t had a Monday print edition for several years.

Tomas Barlow · September 23, 2022 1:18 am

Hansa wrote:
Radiowiz wrote:
Ms. C. wrote:

National Post and Globe & Mail are substantially business-oriented. Toronto Sun has a lot of sports content. All are well-aware of their readership

Vancouver Sun doesn't have a lot of sports content? What is Toronto Sun doing that isn't working in Vancouver for Vancouver's Sun? Why does Toronto get a Monday edition Sun but Vancouver does not?
Although they are all now owned by Postmedia, the Vancouver Sun was never a Sun Media newspaper and so has never had the Sun tabloid format (it's always been a "serious" broadsheet paper) - having been founded in 1912, almost 60 years before the Toronto Sun was launched.

The Province is the tabloid which is similar to the Toronto Sun, but slightly more intelligent not that it takes much.

paterson1 · September 25, 2022 4:23 pm

Starting to wonder if the Toronto Sun will soon drop the Monday paper or even Sunday. Picked up a copy of the Sunday Sun today. Wow has it ever gotten small. Only 34 pages and they are using a shorter tabloid format. Hadn't bought a Sunday Sun for a while and I was shocked to see how skinny it is. The Sunday Star today including all of their sections had 74 pages and mostly in a larger page format. The New York Times book section is a tab.

Saturday is still the biggest day circulation wise and page count for the Globe and Mail, National Post and The Star. Sunday traditionally had been the Sun's biggest day but it hasn't been for many years now.

paterson1 · September 26, 2022 9:08 am

Ms. C. wrote:
paterson1 wrote:
Sunday traditionally had been the Sun's biggest day but it hasn't been for many years now
"Biggest" # of pages printed, or biggest # of issues published?

#pages, #papers printed and sold, and most revenue. Sunday used to be the Sun's big paper.

Radiowiz · September 26, 2022 9:30 am

paterson1 wrote:

#pages, #papers printed and sold, and most revenue. Sunday used to be the Sun's big paper.

& online is it still?

paterson1 · September 26, 2022 11:14 am

Only referring to the physical print product.

mace · September 26, 2022 1:07 pm

The Sunday Sun at one time had a pull out comment and sport sections each comprising of 12-14 pages. Now both are included in the total of about 40 pages of material. They still print a weekly television guide but is only available with home delivery for about $2/month. Just curious. Does the Star TV Guide still come with the Saturday edition or is it now home delivery only?

paterson1 · September 26, 2022 4:36 pm

mace wrote:
The Sunday Sun at one time had a pull out comment and sport sections each comprising of 12-14 pages. Now both are included in the total of about 40 pages of material. They still print a weekly television guide but is only available with home delivery for about $2/month. Just curious. Does the Star TV Guide still come with the Saturday edition or is it now home delivery only?

I only pick up the Saturday Star once or twice per month at the corner store. The Stars TV Guide is always included with it. It actually is still a thick publication with a few articles, but usually no advertising. I don't ever use it.

Lorne · September 26, 2022 6:00 pm

I'm a Star subscriber. They stopped including Starweek magazine with my Saturday paper many years ago. There might be a way of having it included with my subscription if I was willing to pay extra for it, but I'm fine with not getting it.

Chrisphen · September 26, 2022 7:41 pm

Ah, the Sun. Remember when Linda Leatherdale claimed the byline on content an intern researched and wrote? And she stayed employed.

turkeytop · September 27, 2022 12:59 am

Right now, we're at our place in Florida, in the Tampa Bay area. (Not a good time to be here) We come down for a few weeks every fall to tidy up the place for when we come back in the new year.

We used to have two competing newspapers here. The Tampa Tribune and the St Petersburg Times. About five years ago, the two of them merged and became the Tampa Bay Times. Two years ago the Times went down to printing only two days a week. Sunday and Wednesday.

Covid was the final blow. Their advertizing revenue fell off a cliff. The Sunday paper used to be stuffed with flyers and the inside of the paper was full of ads. Now, most of the advertizers have gone online.

Without that revenue the quality of journalism drops. With the drop in quality comes a drop in readership. It's a vicious circle.

When I do business with someone who has advertized in the paper, I always tell them I saw their ad.