Greg Lutes, who was Metro Toronto's first publisher and got that free daily going during a four-year stint, has been named publisher of Metro's new Halifax edition on Canada's Atlantic coast.
The Halifax paper will start on Thursday. It replaces the Halifax Daily News, which closed on Monday after suffering millions of dollars in losses, according to a report in the competing Halifax Chronicle Herald. Lutes left Metro Toronto in 2004 to take on the role of Publisher of the Moncton Times & Transcript. Prior to joining Metro Toronto, he also worked for several leading media companies in a variety of senior sales and management roles.
"It is very exciting to be back with the Metro family. Halifax, with its young, upwardly mobile population is the ideal market for the free daily -- Metro," Lutes said in a news release from Metro.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query halifax. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query halifax. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Metro Canada 'facing real challenges'
Metro Canada is apparently "reorganizing," laying off employees and facing "real challenges," the publisher of the Metro's Halifax edition is quoted as saying. Greg Lutes made the comments to his competitor, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, in a story about four layoffs at Metro Halifax on Wednesday. Lutes said two reporters, one sales staffer and one marketing person were let go. Lutes said the cuts were apart of the re-organization of Metro Canada, which announced a couple of months ago that its Canadian circulation had reached one million, strengthening its position as the No. 1 free daily in the country.
Lutes said, "Local (advertising) is not the issue ... It's national (advertising) ... We're facing real challenges right now."
Lutes said circulation at his paper had increased 20 percent this fall.
The Metro Halifax edition now has five people working in its newsroom. Lutes said he felt confident that there would not be any additional layoffs at the Halifax edition.
Lutes said, "Local (advertising) is not the issue ... It's national (advertising) ... We're facing real challenges right now."
Lutes said circulation at his paper had increased 20 percent this fall.
The Metro Halifax edition now has five people working in its newsroom. Lutes said he felt confident that there would not be any additional layoffs at the Halifax edition.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Random notes & observations
AD LEAD: Starbucks is inserting loyalty cards in both the Chicago Tribune and its free daily counterpart, RedEye, Editor & Publisher reports. If Starbucks is willing to divide its print budget between a free and paid paper, maybe they'll spend money with other free dailies. ...
VOLATILE CIRCULATION: Circulation has been going up and down like a yo-yo at Boston Metro — from 187,000 to 135,000 to 170,000, all in a few months, the Boston alt-weekly The Phoenix reports. Boston Metro has other troubles. It lost publisher Stuart Layne in January, followed by editor Saul Williams a few weeks later. Metro International put the Boston paper and its counterparts in New York and Philadelphia on the block, but so far no takers. All of this has got to be helpful for beantown's new free daily, BostonNow, headed by Russel Pergament. ...
EDITOR SUES: Richard Dooley, who was acting city editor of the Halifax Daily News, is suing the owners of the paper, who shut it down and started a free daily in its place in Feburary. Dooley claims that owner Transcontinental let him go in "an insensitive and unprofessional manner" and "without just cause and without any notice," the competing Halifax Chronicle Herald reports. The new paper, Halifax Metro, is owned by Transcontinental, Torstar Corp. (Toronto Star) and Metro International.
VOLATILE CIRCULATION: Circulation has been going up and down like a yo-yo at Boston Metro — from 187,000 to 135,000 to 170,000, all in a few months, the Boston alt-weekly The Phoenix reports. Boston Metro has other troubles. It lost publisher Stuart Layne in January, followed by editor Saul Williams a few weeks later. Metro International put the Boston paper and its counterparts in New York and Philadelphia on the block, but so far no takers. All of this has got to be helpful for beantown's new free daily, BostonNow, headed by Russel Pergament. ...
EDITOR SUES: Richard Dooley, who was acting city editor of the Halifax Daily News, is suing the owners of the paper, who shut it down and started a free daily in its place in Feburary. Dooley claims that owner Transcontinental let him go in "an insensitive and unprofessional manner" and "without just cause and without any notice," the competing Halifax Chronicle Herald reports. The new paper, Halifax Metro, is owned by Transcontinental, Torstar Corp. (Toronto Star) and Metro International.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Metro needs a U.S. partner
If you're following Metro International, the world's biggest free daily newspaper publisher, you'll see reports later today about the company's first quarter financials. The headline will be that Metro had a loss of 5.6 million euros ($8.9 million U.S.), which was 36 percent better than during the same quarter a year ago.
A year ago, Metro was in a free fall, with a CEO who had one foot out the door. No leadership was on the horizon. A year later, Metro has a new CEO, former Danish TV executive Per Mikael Jensen, who is straightening out the company's finances by closing unprofitable titles and investing where growth is likely. He's even cutting back on expenses at company headquarters. It's the kind of story smart investors crave — an undervalued company on the way up.
The one country where Metro seems to have the most problems is the U.S., where its three editions lost a combined $3.2 million in the first quarter. Sales were down 5.7 percent in the quarter excluding the 12 percent impact from the depreciating U.S. dollar.
Real sales were down 12 percent in Philadelphia and 8 percent in Boston. However, New York was flat — not bad considering the advertising slump all media faced in the Big Apple. Metro noted that a new Scarborough study it commissioned found it was the most-read free newspaper in New York City, a slam on competitor amNewYork.
In one of his first moves as CEO, Jensen put the three U.S. editions up for sale in mid-January. But three months later, it appears there are no buyers.
What's next for these editions?
Previous CEO Pelle Törnberg said he had a policy of shutting down titles that didn't make money after three years. He didn't apply that rule to the prestigious U.S. market. Philadelphia began in January 2000 and hasn't made money. Boston began in May 2001 and hasn't made money. New York, which launched in May 2004, isn't profitable but is the closet to making money.
For Metro to call itself a "global" or "worldwide" newspaper company it needs to be in the United States. So Metro under Törnberg was willing to lose money in order to stake its claim in the USA.
Today's financial report also notes that Metro is losing less money in the U.S. after the layoffs of 27 of its 138 employees. At the moment, Metro Boston lacks a publisher and Philly editor Ron Varrial is covering for New York. Georg Tsaros, from Sweden, is the interim publisher in New York. There are a few other blank spots in the papers' mastheads.
The bright spot in Metro's report was its Canadian joint venture. Sales surged by 23 percent, from $12.3 million to $15.3 (U.S.). While Metro is having problems in the U.S., it says its Toronto and Montreal editions "deliver good profit margins while the new start-ups in Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Halifax invest in readership.
COMMENTARY: Metro needs to find a partner in the United States. It should look at its experience in Canada. If it were to pair up in the U.S. with a big national newspaper chain (MediaNews, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune, Lee, Journal Register, etc.) it could expand effortlessly, allowing paid papers to go free. Free means more people see print ads and those ads work better.
A year ago, Metro was in a free fall, with a CEO who had one foot out the door. No leadership was on the horizon. A year later, Metro has a new CEO, former Danish TV executive Per Mikael Jensen, who is straightening out the company's finances by closing unprofitable titles and investing where growth is likely. He's even cutting back on expenses at company headquarters. It's the kind of story smart investors crave — an undervalued company on the way up.
The one country where Metro seems to have the most problems is the U.S., where its three editions lost a combined $3.2 million in the first quarter. Sales were down 5.7 percent in the quarter excluding the 12 percent impact from the depreciating U.S. dollar.
Real sales were down 12 percent in Philadelphia and 8 percent in Boston. However, New York was flat — not bad considering the advertising slump all media faced in the Big Apple. Metro noted that a new Scarborough study it commissioned found it was the most-read free newspaper in New York City, a slam on competitor amNewYork.
In one of his first moves as CEO, Jensen put the three U.S. editions up for sale in mid-January. But three months later, it appears there are no buyers.
What's next for these editions?
Previous CEO Pelle Törnberg said he had a policy of shutting down titles that didn't make money after three years. He didn't apply that rule to the prestigious U.S. market. Philadelphia began in January 2000 and hasn't made money. Boston began in May 2001 and hasn't made money. New York, which launched in May 2004, isn't profitable but is the closet to making money.
For Metro to call itself a "global" or "worldwide" newspaper company it needs to be in the United States. So Metro under Törnberg was willing to lose money in order to stake its claim in the USA.
Today's financial report also notes that Metro is losing less money in the U.S. after the layoffs of 27 of its 138 employees. At the moment, Metro Boston lacks a publisher and Philly editor Ron Varrial is covering for New York. Georg Tsaros, from Sweden, is the interim publisher in New York. There are a few other blank spots in the papers' mastheads.
The bright spot in Metro's report was its Canadian joint venture. Sales surged by 23 percent, from $12.3 million to $15.3 (U.S.). While Metro is having problems in the U.S., it says its Toronto and Montreal editions "deliver good profit margins while the new start-ups in Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Halifax invest in readership.
COMMENTARY: Metro needs to find a partner in the United States. It should look at its experience in Canada. If it were to pair up in the U.S. with a big national newspaper chain (MediaNews, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune, Lee, Journal Register, etc.) it could expand effortlessly, allowing paid papers to go free. Free means more people see print ads and those ads work better.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Paper that 'lost touch' gets a competitor
The founder of the Vail Daily, who sold that free daily to Swift Newspapers in 1993, on Friday launched another daily in that Colorado resort town. The first edition of Jim Pavelich's new Vail Mountaineer was eight pages. It contained about 50 percent advertising from local businesses.
Pavelich said he started the Mountaineer because he is frustrated with the direction the Vail Daily has gone in recent years.
“It was the biggest tourist holiday of the year, and the big headline on the front page, and I’m paraphrasing, said something like, ‘I hate living here.’ And although I don’t remember the details, I remember that the headline was so unbelievably negative about nothing,” Pavelich told www.realvail.com. “I understand this is a real town with real issues, but they’ve lost touch.”
The Mountaineer was the second free daily Pavelich started in the past month. On May 27, Pavelich and Dave Price started the Palo Alto (Calif.) Daily Post. The Post is going up against a newspaper the pair sold in 2005, the Palo Alto Daily News, one of the most successful community free dailies. The now defunct Knight Ridder bought the Palo Alto Daily News for $25 million in 2005; in 2006 it was acquired by MediaNews Group.
Non-competition agreements from both sales have expired, allowing the former owners back into these markets.
In both cases, the new papers are entering markets where readers are already hooked on getting their news from free daily newspapers.
Vail isn't the only Colorado market where two free dailies are competing. Swift's Aspen Times has been going head-to-head with the independent Aspen Daily News for 20 years.
Despite the economic downturn and pessimism about newspapers, the Mountaineer is the fifth free daily to open in 2008. The others are in Baltimore; Halifax, N.S.; Salt Lake City and Palo Alto. Since the beginning of the year, BostonNOW has closed, the Manchester (N.H.) Express switched to a weekly, and the Nashville City Paper transitioned to an online product with a semi-weekly print editions.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Paid daily closes, replaced with free daily
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.
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