Today
Torstar and Postmedia announced they will swap 41 small newspapers and all but five(?) will be closed almost immediately. It was a property swap with no cash changing hands. About 290 jobs will be lost.
Essentially what happened is that Torstar and Postmedia got together and decided that it wasn't worth competing in certain areas. Torstar and Postmedia each took ownership of their respective competitors is various locations and shut them down.
Postmedia got the free Metro papers in Ottawa and Winnipeg which compete with current Postmedia papers in those cities. Those Metro papers will be closed. Postmedia also got various newspapers near Ottawa, Kingston and London, all of which compete with Postmedia papers in those areas
Torstar got 24 Hours Vancouver and 24 Hours Toronto both of which compete with Torstar's existing Metro publications in those two cities. Both 24 Hours will be closed. Torstar also got various papers that compete with its Metroland weeklies in southern Ontario and most of those will be closed.
Torstar spun the swap by saying it wasn't shutting down the competition and reducing the number of newspapers available in each area but rather that Torstar "will be able to put a greater focus on regions where we believe we can be more effective in serving both customers and clients."
Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey
was more direct. "This is a crisis situation. Most deals you make, you want them to be win-win. Unfortunately this is a lose-lose. You lose brands and you lose people."