Tuesday 1 September 2009

And THAT rumour

A summer intern at a competing media conglomerate walks into a Toronto corner store and during a conversation the owner says:

The Toronto Sun is planning to fold into 24 Hours, which will be free, except for a weekend edition.

So a free Sun/24 weekdays and possibly a paid Sunday Sun on weekends?

With that scenario, Sun readers beyond the GTA would have to say farewell to the weekday Sun. They are not going to transport newspapers to the boonies to give them away.

As our source says, the Sun/24 Hours merging rumour has been rattling around for several years and wondered if TSF has heard anything new.

We haven't, but the rumour just won't die, despite PKP's assurances the Toronto Sun will not be merged with 24 and become a free newspaper.

It was probably just a coincidence the rumour, from another source, surfaced weeks after the Toronto Sun shrank in size and now mirrors 24.

A free Toronto Sun would be a bonus for readers, but it would no doubt cost them some of the popular Sun columnists and features they now enjoy daily.

The feeling of some TSF tipsters is profitable Quebecor Media is preparing to unleash another round of cutbacks this fall, including newspaper closures.

There is no peace of mind for Sun Media employees who have survived a decade of Quebecor cutbacks. We empathize with them, one and all.

And last December's Black Tuesday, when 600 jobs were cut across the Sun Media chain, has not yet marked its first anniversary.

6 comments:

  1. Changing the size probably has nothing to do with 24 as the western community weeklies are also shrinking in size.

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  2. It isn't just the weeklies that have...All of the western Sun papers have already shrunk - and a bunch of the weeklies haven't done it yet, and the timeline for some to do it has yet to be finalized...seems people haven't quite done their homework on what some of the presses around Alberta can and can't do.

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  3. Gawd, I hate the look of the new Sun....Sunday's paper is all disorganized and just seemingly thrown together.
    I paid $70 for 70 weeks, 7 days a week for now what ultimately feels like reading the 24 edition.. Once my current subscription expires, I will not pay again.

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  4. Most of these rumours have come true in some shape or form... changing the Toronto Sun wouldn't surprise me one bit.

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  5. Our paper is 220 lines in a small market in northern Ontario. Generating revenue is a daily challenge to say the least given the economic situation.
    How are we going to justify the same rates when the word is given to downsize to 160 lines?

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  6. Well, if some random merchant suggests it's going to happen then surely it's a done deal.

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