Postmedia Network Canada Corp. is cutting production at three large dailies in order to reinvest in
digital platforms, Gigaom
reported.
Canada's largest
daily newspaper chain will cease publishing the Sunday editions of The Citizen
in Ottawa, The Herald in Calgary and The Journal in Edmonton. Meanwhile, the National Post, in Toronto, will suspend Monday
publications for the summer, as it has done since 2009. The changes were
announced in an internal memo to Postmedia staff this week, obtained
by The Huffington Post.
The company also plans to centralise design and pagination work to a
Postmedia venture in Hamilton, Ontario. "As well as further expand our
operation to accommodate more editorial production and focus on creating local
content," said CEO Paul Godfrey, according to an interview with Globe
and Mail reporter Steve Ladurantaye.
On the other hand,
plans to install online paywalls for some newspapers are being accelerated,
after testing the model on the websites of the Montreal Gazette and the
Victoria Times-Colonist.
"Newspapers are going to need this going forward. It's only a matter of time," Godfrey stated last October in Globe and Mail.
"Newspapers are going to need this going forward. It's only a matter of time," Godfrey stated last October in Globe and Mail.
Godfrey said that
the number of people being laid off across the company will vary from place to place and it
is still under review.
“We understand that Postmedia is facing financial challenges, but we believe the company can only turn things around by investing in its product rather than by cutting jobs,” said Martin O'Hanlon, director of Communications Workers of America in Canada. "If we've learned anything over the last few years, it's that cutting jobs only hurts quality and that does nothing to attract readers."
“We understand that Postmedia is facing financial challenges, but we believe the company can only turn things around by investing in its product rather than by cutting jobs,” said Martin O'Hanlon, director of Communications Workers of America in Canada. "If we've learned anything over the last few years, it's that cutting jobs only hurts quality and that does nothing to attract readers."
Postmedia reported a
loss of C$11 million in the last quarter, and carries a debt of about $516
million, the
Globe and Mail reported. Some of the decline in advertising revenue is due
to "foreign companies, who, without any regulation, are accessing Canadian
audiences and eroding Canadian media revenues," declared Godfrey.
Postmedia was founded
in 2010 by former creditors of the bankrupt newspaper unit of Canwest Global
Communications Corp., the
Media Briefing reported. Postmedia's other newspapers include the
Vancouver Province, the Vancouver Sun, the Regina Leader-Post, the Saskatoon
StarPhoenix and the Windsor Star, as well as the Canada.com online news and
information portal.
Their new digital printing sounds interesting because it's the emerging printing trend these days. I've had some offset printing in Sydney and I am impressed with the vibrant and well-defined colors of the pictures.
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