Canadian printing giant Transcontinental announced today that it is pulling the plug on its 20,000-circulation Daily News in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and will replace it on Thursday with a free daily bearing the Metro label. Transcontinental will publish the new paper in a partnership with Torstar Corp and Metro International. The three companies have a similar partnership in Montreal.The new paper should be more profitable because it will have fewer employees — about 20, compared to the 100 who put out the Daily News. Transcontinental senior vice president Marc-Noel Ouellette was quoted by the CanWest News Service as saying he only expects 65 workers will actually lose their jobs since some will be hired by his company's weekly papers in the region.
Ouellette said the new paper will be published five days a week instead of seven, and will have a count of 20 to 24 pages per issue compared with the 56 to 60 pages the Daily News had been publishing.
