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.

Die Media Die: More Cuts At Sun News

The Dim Reapers strike again - managers being laid off across the chain, though unclear yet if it's every managing editor or just some. Several Ontario dailies lost their MEs today. Other senior staff also cut.

And:

Webco printing in London closed. As many as 40 gone.

And:

More than 40^

there were companies that relied on this printing company and now are out of jobs.

And:

Presses shutting down in the Sault and Timmins, mailrooms closing in the Sault, Timmins and North Bay all northern printing will be done in North Bay.

More to come, apparently.

Sun Media Begins Its Annual Round Of Xmas Layoffs

From TSF:

More to come, at least in Ontario. Bleak start to the holiday season. Thought Scrooge resigned...guess not.

Paper Folds! Sun Media Loses 13th Publication This Year

The Crowsnest Pass Promoter shut down this weekend.  Not quite sure what precipitated this, but it might be for slightly different reasons than the usual.   It sounds as through the local mayor has threatened lawsuits against his town's two papers.

Sun Media Photo Editor Sacked?

In a cost-saving move,  pics will be crowd-sourced to random guy carrying smart-phone.  No.  That last bit is untrue.  So far.

Sun Media: More Closures To Come?

At our paper we are counting the days until they come to lock the doors. There is no fight left in anyone in our building. When, not if Metroland comes to town, people are already updating their resumes, hard to keep fighting for a company that doesn't care.

Dying News Industry Continues To Die

The Portage Daily Graphic, Portage La Prairie’s local newspaper, was altered from a daily publication to a weekly on Mar. 11. The decision was announced by Sun Media and came after large company cuts in November, 2012 and newspaper staff layoffs around the country.

According to Portage la Prairie Mayor Earl Porter, the paper had been featuring more Winnipeg content than Portage news for the past year. This began to affect local advertisements in the publication.

“I’d rather have a weekly paper that had local content than have a daily paper that had all Winnipeg content in it,” Porter said to the CBC.

This has been a common complaint re the Sun Media Strategy.  Centralize everything to save costs, lose local advertisers and readers who hear enough already about what's going on down the road.

Is Sun Media Dumping Even More Small Town Newspapers?

This time, rumors from B.C.:

Well, Sunmedia (Crowsnest Promoter) articles are appearing in Black Press owned Fernie Free Press. Draw your own conclusions. Mine is that there's a bunch of small town papers that have already been dealt away, just not announced yet. 

This is the Crowsnest Pass Promoter; this the Fernie Free Press.  Whatever keeps the whole enterprise afloat, I suppose.  But you can only sell an asset once.

Another One Bites The Dust

Sun Media says they're committed to the town of Ingersoll...so committed they're going down the road to Woodstock, where their new HQ will be a decommissioned school bus.   No, I'm lying!  They'll be sharing space at a radical mosque.  No, I'm lying about that too.  Austerity now, Sun Media. AUSTERITY NOW!

h/t

Quebecor Shutting More Papers

From the Toronto Sun Family blog:

Rumors are spreading that the Niagara region has shut down some of the Shopping News Papers including St. Kits, NF and Welland.

No rumour. Closures, plus layoffs, but not sure exactly how many for each paper. Also not sure where survivors are going.

Let-go's (not lay-offs) in Calgary and Winnipeg too. Market is saturated, no where for people to go.

But they're still willing to paying Ezra's legal fees over at Fox News North.

Sun News Network--Beacon O' Diversity

By the same logic you could say they've  really been a great help to the Roma.

From here.

Sun News Network Begs For Taxpayer $

Application by TVA Group Inc. and Sun Media Corporation, partners in a general partnership carrying on business as Sun News General Partnership, for mandatory distribution on the digital and analog basic service pursuant to an order issued under section 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act of the national English-language specialty national news Category C service Sun TV News.

As I have mentioned previously, I've heard from insiders that if they don't get mandatory carriage they're screwed, and indeed Steve Faguy says they are losing $17 mil a year and need 18 cents per subscriber per month  to get by.  That in mind, you can leave "an intervention" on this issue at the CRTC home page.  You will, I think, find plenty of material on the Sun News Network in the archives here at BCLSB that should help you craft your intervention.  Remember, when you are writing, that if this application fails, Ezra Levant will have to move back home to his dad's basement.

PS.  They are also demanding a better spot on the dial.

From their supporting docs:

Demographics (they've got angry old guy crowd sewn up):

Viewer numbers:

This might have to be my last update for awhile.  I'm laughing too hard.

More Leaked Coren! Most People At Sun News Network Are Gay!

See here for more.

Is A Sun News Network Insider Trying To Screw The Sun News Network?

...or are they just trying to screw Michael Coren?

This is the second bit of embarrassing Michael  Coren footage to have appeared within the last couple of days.

The first can be found here (although, truth be told, the audio looks to have been fiddled with--and there's an edit at the 7 second mark--but the gestures are all real).

Perhaps not coincidentally, Sun News is making a 2nd  attempt at getting mandatory carriage.  The decision on this, I hear from company insiders from the management layer, could come down sometime in the new year.  And, I am told, the station is done like dinner if the ruling goes against them.  Presumably, video of their on-air personalities giving what look very much like fascist salutes will exert a negative influence on the CRTC when they finally rule.

But where did all this stuff originate?  It looks like program outtakes, and why would anyone at Sun  News  leak outtakes?  Who can say, really? But the parent company has laid off and is still laying off 100s of people.  Is somebody inside trying to strike back?

Sun Media To Sell Off Alberta Papers In 2013?

The question: why did Quebecor close one paper in Ontario with 6 employees and circulation of about 18k, but keep a couple of papers in Alberta with ten employees and less than 3k in circulation?

The answer, perhaps: even though the rural Alberta papers have low circulation, they were likely not closed because arrangements were made to sell them, and these days a closed paper has no value but one still running has some resale value.  You will see a lot of Alberta SunMedia papers change hands in January.

We'll check back in the new year.

More Sun Media Newspapers Close Their Doors

From the "That Didn't Take Long, Did It?" department: 

The Windsor This Week and Leamington Post websites are already down and folks who try and access those sites are automatically redirected to the Toronto Sun.

The Amherstburg Echo, whose site was taken down a few weeks ago resulting in people being redirected to Windsor This Week, also now has web surfers redirected to Toronto Sun.

Guelph Review site was still active (as of roughly 6:40 p.m. EST Friday evening Dec. 7) and those trying to find the K-W Review online are redirected to the Stratford Beacon Herald.

Dunnville Chronicle's website is no more with people redirected now to the Simcoe Reformer.

West Niagara News is offline with people redirected to the St. Catharines Standard website.

The Capital City News website has also vanished with the Ottawa Sun's website popping up instead.

More on this story here.

Another Sun Bung-Up

In a story about the weekend's pro-Palestinian rally on Bloor St.:

A version of this story that briefly appeared on torontosun.com contained quotes wrongly attributed to Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The Sun regrets the error and apologizes to Mr. Farber.

Most interesting thing here is: since Mr. Farber didn't supply the quotes in question (which can be found here), did someone identifying themselves as Bernie Farber offer them?  An impersonator, in other words.

I've emailed the reporter for clarification.

The State Of Sun Media

Former Toronto Sun editorial page editor Rob Granatstein laments:

When the latest victims of downsizing are gone, Toronto will be down to three general assignment news reporters, according to people in that newsroom, unless staff is reassigned. That’s flat out ridiculous. The Sun will rely even more on its columnists to generate the news going forward. The editors have no idea how they will fill their weekend papers.

[...]

The heart of local newspapers used to be the “local” part. The Sun seems to be ceding any advantage it used to have to its competitors.

[...]

A realist also looks at it through a business prism. The papers are still profitable, but like all of us from the newspaper world, the loss of advertising, classifieds, plus giving the content away for free on the Internet, it’s hurt us all. The Sun continues to hold on to The daily freebie, 24 Hours, and dump money into TV with the Sun News Network – ventures that baffle the staff as people and spending gets cut everywhere else.

Apparently I'm not the only that wonders what's up with the Sun News Network.  I can't see it ever making money.  Does anyone still advertise there anymore?  So why keep the thing afloat?

Lorrie Goldstein Out At T.O. Sun

The Toronto Sun Family Blog comes out of retirement to give us the gory details.  Jim Thomson is the other name on their list that I recognize.

The business strategy seems to be to centralize content production, so the small town publications become pale reflections of The Sun, as it were.  Local news coverage suffers under this model.

Rumor: The New Sun Media Wants You To Look At Pictures

400 word for stories; 600 words for features, to make room for more graphics and stock pics and useless eye candy. It starts this week for some papers, and will be rolling out to all of them soon... 

I am reminded of an old editorial cartoon,  Its caption read (in tiny print): if you can't read this, you should be reading The Toronto Sun.