Sackings At The Sun today

Or Postmedia, or whatever it is.  Details here.

Die Media Die: Toronto Sun Rumors

Sun Staff outta 333 King by end of '15.  National Post to become a tabloid:

I remember serious rumblings 2-3 years ago that PM management wanted to turn the Post into a tabloid. One of the hurdles, of course, would have been that Canada already has a chain of urban tabs....

But what if you made the Post a tab and used whoever is left from the Suns in each market (a skeleton crew of a couple editors and maybe half a dozen writers) to fill the local news and sports pages within the Post?

With the TO Sun staff being moved into a broom closet at the Post building by the end of the year, that would make a lot of sense. 

Other rumors have 333 being turned into a radical mosque slash paintball facility, and have The Post building down to one set of bathrooms for the entire staff to save money.  Employees have been asked to bring their own toilet paper.  Some have taken to crapping out open windows so as to avoid the interminable line-ups.

Update:  The first rumor is in fact fact.

Postmedia Fires A Useful Guy

From J-Source:

Postmedia Network is downsizing its parliamentary bureau and had laid off five parliamentary bureau staff.

Three political reporters—Mike De Souza, Andrea Hill and Tobi Cohen—as well as planning and production editor Rhonda Cumming and librarian Kirsten Smith were laid off.

Mike De Souza is, or was, pretty much the only journalist in Canada who  consistently covered issues surrounding the federal government's response to Global Warming.  And now he's gone.  On the other hand, pointless blow-hard climate change denier Terence Corcoran remains.

For the consipracy-minded, this deal signed bewteen Postmedia and CAPP last July certainly looks suspicious:

If they're willing to ensure that their editorials will be onside with CAPP, who knows that they wouldn't terminate a reporter whose stories have been an embarrassment to their new pay-masters.

Another QMI Paper Bites Dust

Midland Press closed this morning with a loss of five jobs, though it doesn't look as though they have bothered to put up notice of the fact on their website:

Did Midland even get a farewell in their print edition? I looked online and I don't see anything. I'm also not seeing anything on their website. If not, that's just horrible.

PS. Ugly signs from Postmedia today too:

Some Postmedia employees freaked out by news COO visiting newsrooms and they are "encouraged" to attend. Company says just routine updates.
— Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) June 19, 2013

Postmedia Continues Its Failing Failure

TORONTO - Postmedia Network Canada Corp. (TSX:PNC.A) had $8.3 million of net income and $26.7 million of operating income in its latest quarter, both down from a year earlier.

The Toronto-based publisher's revenue also fell, dropping to $211.7 million in the three months ended Nov. 30 from $231 million a year earlier.

I think I saw Jonathon Kay outside their building on Don Mills this morning.  He was boiling his belt for the extra calories.

Postmedia Exits The Propertied Class, Rents Space In Soulless Skyscraper

The National Post's new digs will be 365 Bloor Street East.   The canada.com puff-piece says:

The company has signed a 15-year lease to occupy “several” floors of the 19-storey office building at the Bloor Street East and Sherbourne intersection. The area is dotted with many of Canada’s top media and advertising companies and is the country’s most high-end retail strip.

You know, though, when I look at the area on Street-view I see two pharmacies, a Swiss Chalet, and a McDs.  But whatever.  Apparently there's a paint-ball facility in the building somewhere, and on the upper floors a radical mosque that calls everyone to prayer nine times a day through loudspeakers drilled into the side of the facade itself.  Presumably, Postmedia will want those removed when they "re-brand" the site. Good luck with that.   I am also told that the building will be renamed the Lookout Below Tower, in honor of Postmedia's stock price.

CRASH! Sale Of Company HQ Sends Postmedia Stock Down 36% In One Day!

Yesterday, after Postmedia announced the sale of its HQ building on Don Mills Avenue, its stock plunged in heavy (for Postmedia, anyway) trading.

And here's PNC.B-T's  one year trading chart, which shows the stock's long-term trend:

You know, if you showed that chart to an astrophysicist without telling them what it signified, they'd say it could only be the path of a star plunging into a humongous  black hole, for no other phenomenon in the known universe exhibits such a steep decline.   Then you could explain to him about Conservative newspapers in Canada.


In any case, here's the company's "forward-looking" press release.  Reading between the lines, the author is saying that next time he writes one of these things he will already have boiled his belt for the calories, and will be hungrily considering eating his own gaunch in a desperate attempt to stave off malnutrition.


PS. Here's a Postmedia columnist sounding off on the glories of Capitalism.  Talk to your boss, Peter Foster!

Goodbye Jonathon Kay! Goodbye Andrew Coyne!

Postmedia Network has sold, and will be moving from, their Don Mills HQ, which I run past every morning on my way to work.   Word is they're headed for a slightly less palatial facility "closer to town". Taste the austerity, fellas, it will help build your character.

Word is they'll be selling off everything, from PCs to coffee mugs to boxes of documents from Conrad Black's time at the paper.  You just stand outside the building and haggle, and they hand you the stuff you bought out through the smashed windows.  Coyne will keep track of the monies raised, as he is the only guy on staff that's handy with numbers.

If A Newspaper Nobody Reads Goes Behind A Pay-Wall

 ...will anyone read it less?

And, oh look!, Revenues are down again.  I think when I run past the Postmedia building this morning I'll throw dimes at the windows, see if I can trigger a staff riot.