Wednesday 23 September 2009

Re Brockville Voice

The new independent Brockville Voice broadsheet weekly, with four former Sun Media employees among the ranks, marks its first month on the streets this Friday.

Jacqui Lysko, editor-in-chief, brings TSF up to date on the Aug. 21 launch of one of Canada's newest independent newspapers, which had an initial press run of 12,000.

Her e-mail reads:

"We launched on Aug. 21 and have had a huge response to the paper. Currently, there are three owner/partners, six sales reps, 11 distribution people and two co-op students.

"That is pretty incredible if you consider the original business, ButternutZe Publishing, had only two owners and one sales person when we began operation in November 2008.

"As for how many are ‘cast-offs’ from other papers: that would be four – so far. ButternutZe Publishing began when I started publishing a monthly magazine, Living in Brockville, with my business partner, Roz Phillips.

"When my husband, Mark, was laid off from the local Sun Media paper, The Recorder & Times, in December 2008 after 16 years as Production/IT manager, we began planning the paper.

"We had a ‘false start’ with a real estate weekly. We were up against the R & T and unfortunately we failed in our attempt to produce a weekly tabloid.

"We re-grouped and The Brockville Voice was launched. The Voice is a free community paper, all local content. We have most of the editorial submitted by community groups and residents of Brockville.

"Ad sales have been extremely surprising. We began as an eight-page paper and we are now at 12 pages. Most pages are colour. We receive comments from readers and advertisers – all good.

"All in all, we are growing in leaps and bounds. We are soon moving to a larger office space and adding two new employees by years end. (graphic designer and editor). We do have a web-site, but it is incomplete at this time.

"We hope by end of year two to increase our run to include a Monday or Wednesday edition.

"To anyone thinking of following our example, don’t be intimidated by the corporate-owned papers. Do your own thing and do it well.

"Thanks (TSF). I hope we can inspire someone else to take the big step."

Thank you for the update, Jacqui. All the best.

2 comments:

  1. This is great news and I wish the owners of The Voice all the best. Hopefully over time they can get editorial content from more than just community groups etc. so that the articles are stronger and better written -- not to mention more objective. Still, this is a fantastic baby-step and my best wishes.

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  2. Great to see and I hope they kick Sun Media's ass and show them how to properly do things.

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