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Dear Valued Customers: The Landscape is Changing
The Toronto media landscape is definitely changing, with things printed on paper seemingly being most affected.
Not long ago, Torontoist pointed out what appears to be a cutback of distribution of the National Post in the city. Boxes have gone empty for quite some time.
And now it would appear that this may also be the case for the Toronto Star. blogTO reader Carrie M. sent us the above cell phone snap, which delivers some bad news to readers.
Just last week I happened upon the above scene: an advertisement from retail giant Walmart that takes up more than half of the paper's selling surface (you can't even read the headlines!).
Does this suggest desperation on the part of Torstar? That ad would have to be a serious cash cow to warrant covering the paper. Or does Torstar really need the cash flow... so much so that they're willing to sell their front page?
Of course, this might just be premature speculation rearing its head. Or not. We'll see.
In related news, CBC and Globe and Mail are joining CTV in implementing cost cutting measures during the economic downturn. Quebecor is likely to follow suit, one might surmise.
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that newspapers everywhere are experiencing a crunch. thanks to the internet.
the medium is the message. and the message on the net is MORE SOUNDBITES! MORE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS BLOGS! MORE INSTANTANEOUS NEEDLESS FACTS!!
watch as our society changes. it is fascinating, and scary. I am mostly scared.
I'm sure the abandoned boxes are caused by a number of things - including the economy (reduced ad sales; subscriptions) and the internet (online readers, e-competition) - but I wonder if the steadily worsening quality of the Star has had an impact on its sales.
I rarely read it for that reason.
But this way, I can read much more than I could have before.
Someone should write "www.thestar.com" on the blank lines.
I don't even really read it for free any more though, the Star has gotten really bad lately and the painful reader comment dumping ground just make it look like a news version of YouTube most days.
In addition to getting the content for free, though, the internet provides more effective free classifieds. I heard this being blamed for a lot of the loss of revenue that bankrupted the Chicago Tribune.
Aspirin also cut into leech sales once upon a time, no tears shed.
(Sadly, this jibe is almost 10 years old.)
really? you have research to support your claims? without advertising and innovative/intrusive advertising, a lot of people will be out of work..including the publisher of this site! you think you can come to blogto for free? get real
When you have such amount of information in your hands, A)You end up wasting time and B) It gives you a headache being on there for too long.
I'm not against information, or being good to our environment, but a newspaper does good in alot of ways. It gives you the news of the day without the headaches and nothing more(*no endless news of silly things you dont need to know about) It also "slows people down". We're becoming a go-go society that it more stressed and more ill.
Again, i'm not against technology, just technology that's superfulous.
Sad thing, it was always empty. So either people were always stealing all of them or actually READING/BUYING wasn't enough.
I wondered sometimes why sometimes I would pick up the Metro and it would be quite thinner then usual days? Maybe some of these reasons perhaps. :)