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They say timing is everything. National Post first published 24 years ago today October 27th 1998. Most in the newspaper business and media in general said their timing was terrible. The internet was a new thing starting to get noticed, and newspapers across the country and North America were just beginning the slow slide in readership and revenue. This was not the time to start a daily newspaper based in Toronto, and much worse a national paper. Many thought the Post was doomed and could only survive a couple of years at best.
Here is the National Post's dear diary version of their 24th birthday...https://nationalpost.com/opinion/satire-dear-diary-national-post
Last edited by paterson1 (October 27, 2022 4:15 pm)
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It was started as a vanity project, more talked about than read, and like a bad Mexican dinner it remains stuck in the gut of the body politic - its emissions occasionally making themselves known.
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Hansa wrote:
24 years old, and yet to turn a profit?
Postmedia is making money.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/postmedia-reports-52-8m-net-profit-despite-25-revenue-shortfall-1.1548186
and
https://www.postmedia.com/2022/07/07/postmedia-reports-third-quarter-results-9/
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Healthy companies do it through revenue increases not through cuts.
The slow methodical gutting of the company while the executives continue to cash in should be a crime.
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This is timely. Today the Star has an excerpt and article in the paper of late publisher John Honderich's upcoming memoir. Honderich passed away back in February of this year. The book is called Above The Fold and documents Honderich's time working for the Star in various capacities right up to publisher. The excerpt is a little inside baseball, but those interested in media and the newspaper business will find it interesting.
A big part of the commentary is regarding Toronto's newspaper wars just prior to and during The National Post launching in 1998. All the Toronto dailies were making good money and all expanded their newsrooms and budgets in advance of the new national newspaper headed up by Conrad Black.
When the Post hit the street, Toronto had the distinction of publishing more newspapers (daily, weekly, ethnic, community) than any other city in North America, and also most competitive.
The feeling was that Toronto and the GTA could not support four daily English language newspapers in addition to everything else. Twenty four years later all four are still here, although a lot smaller, poorer and weaker than in 1998.
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2022/10/28/i-became-publisher-at-the-star-at-the-beginning-of-the-newspaper-wars-it-was-the-fight-of-my-life.html
Last edited by paterson1 (October 28, 2022 10:37 am)