Postmedia to shut down wire service, sign up with Canadian Press

[Don Denton]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/postmedia-to-shut-down-wire-service-sign-up-with-canadian-press/article2425175/

[Moe Doiron]

Interesting development indeed.

You'd definitely need a program to follow this but in case people haven't connected the dots, the tentacles of newspaper and wire service ownership among the big players has started to get a bit ... let's say ... complicated

Please follow along at home ...


David Thomson, owner of Thomson Reuters, owns The Globe and Mail which also owns 1/2 or 1/3 of The Canadian Press (depends who you ask) which has exclusive distribution of The Associated Press in Canada, both of these news services happen to compete with his company Thomson Reuters for Canadian subscribers.

Now Postmedia shuts down it's proprietary news service and signs a deal with The Canadian Press which is owned in the most part by The Globe and Mail (Thomson) and the Toronto Star, all three of whom compete against each other in both the Toronto and national markets.

The Globe and Mail (Thomson) and the Toronto Star recently announced a partnership to handle their collective distribution.


Hoping this all gets explained before it gets ugly. Stay tuned, I'm sure there are more moves to come. 

[Don Denton]

Any rumours/suggestions that Sun Media will return to the CP fold?

[Moe Doiron]

Any rumours/suggestions that Sun Media will return to the CP fold?

I doubt PKP possesses that kind of humility .... if I recall some pretty heated words surrounded their separation from CP.

[Jimmy Jeong]

Too bad there are no plans to hire new staff by CP.

[Moe Doiron]

Too bad there are no plans to hire new staff by CP.

Pretty sure the photo staff is the same size as it was when Postmedia was there last time in '07. So nothing has changed really.

[Ken Gigliotti]

In 1980  the chains were forced to modernize and that resulted in many newspapers across the country to shut down . There are a few people like myself who saw it happen . It was painful and heartbreaking .Basically the chains were able to finance modernization when  competition  disappeared . This  could all happen again but for different reasons . People are trying ,but nothing is working. The Online culture is not moving towards a goal , it is moving away from advertizing based products . Our business still hasn't developed a website  in six years.  There is simply too much duplication of service , too much media . CBC cuts ,some stations dropping or reducing local news shows to thirty minutes .Newspapers , geez . There are people who still think there is nothing wrong in this media business. Everyone is doing exactly the same things they have always done . Hail to the strong  and  hope to the brave , the survivors may not win either. We are smarter that we look but not as smart as we think we are .The entire business has to take a good look at itself , from the worker ant to the highest peaks .

[Warren Toda]

Everyone is doing exactly the same things they have always done.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

  – Albert Einstein.

[Graeme Roy]

In 1980  the chains were forced to modernize and that resulted in many newspapers across the country to shut down . There are a few people like myself who saw it happen . It was painful and heartbreaking .Basically the chains were able to finance modernization when  competition  disappeared . This  could all happen again but for different reasons . People are trying ,but nothing is working. The Online culture is not moving towards a goal , it is moving away from advertizing based products . Our business still hasn't developed a website  in six years.  There is simply too much duplication of service , too much media . CBC cuts ,some stations dropping or reducing local news shows to thirty minutes .Newspapers , geez . There are people who still think there is nothing wrong in this media business. Everyone is doing exactly the same things they have always done . Hail to the strong  and  hope to the brave , the survivors may not win either. We are smarter that we look but not as smart as we think we are .The entire business has to take a good look at itself , from the worker ant to the highest peaks .

Two parts of the problem, of which of course there are many, but these two are intertwined. First is that the internet, where we are all headed to in droves as the great disseminator of all information and entertainment, grew up with a frontier mentality of 'content is free'. Couple this with overpriced internet access, and you have a real issue squeezing money out of Mr. Joe Consumer. It is tough to get people to pony-up money for a variety of services that they have always gotten for free when they already arguably pay too much for the pipe coming in.

Cable/satellite television services are through the roof, yet coincidently if you want to ditch them your biggest providers of internet service are by-in-large the same players. They get you coming and going.

A parallel, which I only draw as a far-fetched comparison, is if you had to pay your paperboy 10 bucks to deliver your one-dollar newspaper every day. You aren't going to buy the paper are you?

The success of transitioning to proper pay-for-use services, and btw I say bravo to the Globe for their paywall gambit, lies in great part in de-coupling the high-priced service from the content you want to pay for. Give people all-you-can-eat broadband at a discount price, but charge them for the content - you know, the stuff that we create. Right now the vast majority of that money goes to the core infrastructure providers, Bell/Rogers/Shaw, etc. just to bring you the service, so there is not much left to pay for the content is there?

[Ken Gigliotti]

 We have an expensive service that can only be produced but never sold . The danger of the newspaper  becoming a flier  or place mat for  restaurant cutlery is very real . In the past the ideal ratio of editorial content to advertizing was said to be 60% editorial ,40% ads . Today advertizing coupled with advertorial looks more like 40% editorial . Paid advertizing that looks like editorial  is also  creeping in along with front page wrap-around ads.
  The advertizing department through the ages have always felt that people  buy the paper for the adverting  ,  I guess we will find out.
  Back in the 1980's it was also common for newspaper companies to own radio stations . Newspaper companies divested themselves voluntarily to avoid threatened government regulation . I think if this never happened the fortunes of newspapers  might have been different . Bear in mind profits were every , every high  , wages were just starting to move up ,it was not a big concession at the time.

[James Helmer]

Moe Doiron wrote:

"The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star recently announced a partnership to handle their collective distribution."

Not sure what this means, will they share market distribution? It is complicated and I have been trying to follow this for years!

[Moe Doiron]

Moe Doiron wrote:

"The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star recently announced a partnership to handle their collective distribution."

Not sure what this means, will they share market distribution? It is complicated and I have been trying to follow this for years!

I believe it simply means that they'll both be using the same contractors to deliver the papers to homes, retailers, etc.

Here's the press release with a bit more info:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/91373462/Distribution-JP-External-Press-Release-FINAL