Toronto Sun fighting for survival

[JR]

This was in today's Globe & Mail, about the Sun Newspaper (owned by Quebecor), and its struggle to maintain readership.

In Toronto, it's fighting against three other newspapers: the Globe, the Toronto Star and the National Post (well, the Post is kinda half a newspaper)

Circulation has gone from a high of 250,000 in '95 to around 180,000 now.

There's been at least one SportsJournalists.comer who's lost their job in the cuts.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061014.SUN14/TPStory/?query=toronto+sun

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Canada's newspaper market has always behaved differently than the United States', so I won't pretend to know much about it. How are the other Sun tabs doing in Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton?

In the United States, the only paid-circulation tab that has gained circ in recent years is the New York Post, but they had to cut their newsstand price in half to gain circ. I think tabs are dying. I think there is going to be a decreasing market for less-serious newspapers because people who like to read and are interested in the world tend to prefer a more complete newspaper. People who don't like to read and aren't interested in the world can find easier, more pashive ways of being entertained than buying and reading a newspaper, even a goofy one.

 

[JR]

Canada's newspaper market has always behaved differently than the United States', so I won't pretend to know much about it. How are the other Sun tabs doing in Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton?

In the United States, the only paid-circulation tab that has gained circ in recent years is the New York Post, but they had to cut their newsstand price in half to gain circ. I think tabs are dying. I think there is going to be a decreasing market for less-serious newspapers because people who like to read and are interested in the world tend to prefer a more complete newspaper. People who don't like to read and aren't interested in the world can find easier, more pashive ways of being entertained than buying and reading a newspaper, even a goofy one.

I think the papers in all the markets are suffering, at least by Quebecor's standards.

The Toronto Sun was started up in the early 70's by some newspaper people after the Toronto Telegram folded. Most people gave it about a year to survive.

I think one of the attractions of the newspaper (other than it's virulent anti-Trudeauism) originally was its eccentric conservatism. It was populist but had columnists like Lubor Zink who made Chris Lynch look like Karl Marx.

Now it's just right wing and dull.

I agree with your sentiments about tabloids.

 

[Double J]

I'm sure Doug Creighton is spinning in his grave. He was the driving force behind the Sun's birth from the ashes of the Toronto Telegram, which died 35 years ago this month.

If the Sun dies, I'll miss it. I know some people look down on it and say it appeals only to the lowest-common denominator, but I think that's a slap at the blue-collar readers who are ignored by every other newspaper in town.

Plus, its sports and entertainment coverage have always been among the very best in Toronto.

 

[steveu]

I'm not sure if they still do this, but the women on the back page also made the Sun worth reading. ;D

 

[patchs]

A bunch of my pals and I were taking a limo to a Jays game (we won a sports trivia contest at a bar) and we made a rest stop.
There was a Sun coin box, so I bought one. There was a story about a sex industry trade show in Toronto.
So the game, (against the Rockies) was boring, barely 15,000 on a Fri. night, so we decided to go to the sex trade show.
That was a hell of an improvement over the game.
So I'll always have a soft spot for the Sun.

 

[slappy4428]

You went to a sex trade show and had a soft spot?
Geez, fella. I wouldn't admit THAT in public.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

God, slap, that curveball didn't break much, did it?

 

[slappy4428]

God, slap, that curveball didn't break much, did it?

Right in the wheelhouse....

 

[Huggy]

The Sun is the only paper I buy every day. I get the Star on weekends and read it online through the week. Sun's sports section is still the best in town by ages (despite the presence of Al Strachan).

(I never look at the Post unless I'm at a restaurant or hotel that gives them out free - and there are loads of them - and I only read the boring Globe for Jeff Blair's baseball stuff.)

 

[Michael_ Gee]

IMO, both the Star and Sun are quality sports sections.

Frank, you may be right about the future of tabloids, but I hope not. At their best, tabs are news as street poetry.

 

[JR]

Well, the sports coverage in the Sun may be more comprehensive than the Star or the Globe (Post doesn't count for anything) but other than Bob Elliott, the Sun's columnists don't hold a candle to either the Globe's or the Star's.

It's funny but at my local when they refer to "the paper", they're invariably referring to the Sun .

Saw a copy of the Globe in there once. Someone must have stumbled into the wrong place. It was like a giant turd on the plaza.