CanWest gets back in the free daily business

CanWest, which shut down its youth oriented Dose free daily in May, introduced a new free daily in Ottawa today called RushHour. But instead of entering an already-packed morning market, RushHour is positioning itself as the afternoon commuter paper of choice. Here's a report in the Ottawa Business Journal and the press release from CanWest. CanWest still holds a one-third share of MetroCanada, which means that in Ottawa at least, CanWest will be competing with itself in the free daily market.

SunMedia's 24 Hours is also expected to enter the Ottawa market with two editions: a French-language version for Gatineau, with perhaps 40,000 copies printed; and an English-language version in Ottawa with 80,000.