Friday 21 September 2007

Time for some give?

The Toronto Sun enjoyed a healthy 9.9% hike in daily readership between the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2007 - a NADbank stat that calls for some give from Quebecor.

Saturday Sun readership was up 5.7%. Sunday Sun figures were not available in the Toronto Star story by Rita Trichurstory.

Sun Media's flagship tabloid topped all of the competition for daily and Saturday readership figures, despite another year of downsizing in the newsroom.

The Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild says newsroom staff at the Toronto Sun has been halved since Quebecor purchased Sun Media in January of 1999.

Topping the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and National Post in daily and Saturday readership in one tough newspaper market should bode well for unionized Sun employees. They return to the negotiation table this fall for a second contract.

But we are thinking of the pre-Quebecor years when improvements usually meant some give from management in the form of profit sharing and raises.

With Michael Sifton now at the helm at Sun Media, employees can only hope he will have the clout to beef up newsroom staff and ease the burden of those who survived the carnage.

More Toronto Sun jobs will be lost in 10 days when the presses at 333 King Street East are silenced and printing of the tabloid moves to Quebecor's new plant.

That once bustling six-floor Sun building will be mighty quiet without the roar of the presses; a newsroom that has been cut in half; a classifieds department shut down in favour of a move to Kanata; the thinning of other departments etc.

Glenn Garnett, the Sun's editor in chief, said in his NADbank story in Thursday's Sun:

"The best is yet to come, and we thank a growing number of readers for joining us on a very interesting ride."

How Quebecor negotiates with SONG at the bargaining table will determine if the best is yet to come for employees of the profitable tabloid, who helped boost those readership figures.

They have been closely watching the five-month lockout and strike at the Journal de Montreal in Quebec City.

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