Another one bites the dust: Paper shuts down

The Halifax Daily News has shut down without warning. Transcontinental is turning it into a free commuter daily and 92 people are out of work as of this morning.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUsMweKr_o-CRcTfy4z1_rYxxgtA

Halifax Daily News to shut down; Transcontinental to publish free paper instead

16 minutes ago

HALIFAX - The Halifax Daily News ceased publication Monday as the tabloid's owner, Montreal-based Transcontinental Media, moved ahead with a plan to offer a free daily called Metro.

The company said all but a few of the 92 employees at the Daily News will be let go.

The first edition of the free newspaper will be on the streets Thursday, said Marc-Noel Ouellette, senior vice-president of the company's newspaper group.

Transcontinental acquired the Daily News in 2002. The paper had a daily circulation of about 20,000 copies. It competed with the family-owned Halifax Chronicle Herald.

The new Metro newspaper will be set up in partnership with Metro International S.A. and the Toronto-based Torstar Corp.

"We worked hard to deliver an economically viable newspaper in the Halifax market with the Daily News," Ouellette said in a statement.

"It was an extremely tough business decision. ... (But) in this context, we are delighted to continue our presence as a daily newspaper publisher in the Halifax market."

 

Sad.

:-[

 

Friend of a friend learned about losing her job by waking up and listening to the news.

Heartless fucking bastards.

 

Indeed. Sad news.

That shit makes me sick.

 

How many papers of this size (circ. 20,000) have shut down in the last year or so? This is the first I've heard of. Are there many others?

This is pretty alarming. Wake up one day with no job and find out about it watching it on the news? So, any other papers out there like this shut down? Or anybody got an idea of how many actually have shut down?

 

what's even more sad is anyone who considers a free daily to be a newspaper

it's a money-maker, but it's not a newspaper

 

They couldn't at least have given a couple months heads up?

How many of those 92 people would have spent differently over the holidays had they seen this coming?

 

The writing may have been on the wall with a 20,000 circulation in a city of almost 400,000.

 

that's bullshit, claude. you can't say the people at this shop should have seen this coming. their fucking publisher and owners also should have dropped a hint as well.

 

Absolutely.

But you've also got to be able to do the math yourself.

Small circ. plus big town plus out-of-town owners can't equal job security.

 

i don't think it works like that, claude.

 

I suppose not.

Instead let me say: You cannot be surprised by anything in this business anymore.