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 passive 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 passive 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.

 

[Beef03]

JR - will never understand your outright disdain for the National Post, but whatever.

The Edmonton Sun has by far a better sports section than the Edmonton Journal, and I could be wrong on this, is actually better read. If not they have got to be fairly close. I don't read the Sun for their news, although I do like some of the columnists and editorials. Half the time when I look at the front page though it almost gives me a flash back to corny cartoons where they have the news paper spiral into fram with some over the top headline. Often it makes me a little ashamed sometimes to be part of the Quebecor/Sun Media/Bowes family. Tabs do serve a purpose, they give you the quick hit or take you to the front row of whatever the day's viloent/sex story of the day is. Politically the Sun family is more right wing, which is right up my alley, but I will still flip through whatever the Liberal brigade is throwing at us in the Journal – to get a balance. I imagine it is similar in Calgary with the Sun and the Herald, being a part of the same competing newspaper companies.

JR: is it true that the Toronto Sun experimented with dropping the Sunshine girl for a day a week or two ago? how did that go over? did you here of much backlash? I know there would be if the Edmonton Sun dropped it.

 

[Double J]

The Sunshine Girl was MIA for one day recently. I don't know if it was ever explained why. All I know is that I missed her. :'(

 

[Beef03]

The Sunshine Girl was MIA for one day recently. I don't know if it was ever explained why. All I know is that I missed her. :'(

Talked to a Bowes group publisher (Bowes is the Canada-wide weekly chain sucked up by Quebecor a few years ago) at a conference a few weeks ago and he was saying it was intentional, just to gauge the reaction to it if they went without. My guess is that it did not go over to well, especially if she hasn't been skipped since. Another cost cutting attempt, but a stupid one. I'm going out on a limb here (not a very wobbly one though) in saying the Sun's core audience is males 16 to 35, the Sunshine Girl being a major drawing card. For me it's a bonus. I would still get the Edmonton Sun for the sports section even if they didn't have it. It's like desert when you get to the end of the meal.

(likely NSFW)
http://www.edmontonsun.com/SUNshineGirl/Sunday/home.html

Somedays are better than others, but whatcha going to do?

 

[DyePack]

That was some funny stuff, especially the idiocy about Kim Jong Il.

They should make a cartoon about Canada. It could feature stick animation and commercials starring Morris the cat and Mr. Whipple.

 

[Beef03]

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

After reading the story, I find it interesting that the Globe (I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying it's the Sun's competition in everyway from market to company) is not only fronting with this (although it was well written) but they would go so far as to ask the public what they would do to save the Sun including the voice of a former Sun Editor. I would have thought with all of the increased competition in the GTA that they would be pushing for its demise and save the front for when the Sun finally did call it quits. That being said I do appreciate that they did the story to the extent that they did, because there is no way the Sun itself would bring its own inner workings and squabbles to the forefront like this.

 

[Beef03]

That was some funny stuff, especially the idiocy about Kim Jong Il.

They should make a cartoon about Canada. It could feature stick animation and commercials starring Morris the cat and Mr. Whipple.

Did I miss something?

 

[Double J]

That was some funny stuff, especially the idiocy about Kim Jong Il.

They should make a cartoon about Canada. It could feature stick animation and commercials starring Morris the cat and Mr. Whipple.

Um, cartoons about Canada have already been made, thanks.

 

[RedCanuck]

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

Interesting. I was at a conference Saturday where some vets from both the Sun and Star were present. The Sun people seemed optimistic, while people at the Star were kind of anxious that there might be cutbacks afoot. I don't think anyone had read this cover yet.

Though the Globe story might have looked for ways to save the Sun, and I didn't read it, I'd presume from a business standpoint it isn't a bad thing to bring a competitor's future into doubt.

Sports-wise, I've become a bigger fan of the Post lately, particularly their presentation with big, interesting photos and the inclusion of some interesting feature stories you just wouldn't find in the other three Toronto papers. They just need to more regularly have a prominent sports section, rather than sometimes sticking it behind something else.