Montreal newspaper to cease Sunday edition

Posted by Clara Martínez Turco on July 15, 2010 at 12:15 PM

The Gazette, Montreal's English-language newspaper, will eliminate its Sunday print edition and instead offer an online version, The Toronto Star reported.

"In its 22-year existence, the Sunday Gazette has struggled to find significant advertising support to cover the costs of printing and distribution," said Gazette's publisher and editor-in-chief Alan Allnutt in a statement posted on the daily's website.

He explained that the publishing change will help to cut costs and allow the daily to "focus its resources on the six remaining print editions and on the Web."

Popular sections of the Sunday Gazette, like comics and social features, will be added to the Saturday edition starting Aug. 7. On Sundays, breaking news will be covered through the daily's website.

"In our case, we just want to focus and offer the best print product for six days and slowly do a transition to the Web, like everybody else," The Gazette's vice-president of marketing and sales Bernard Asselin told CTV Montreal while reminding that no jobs will be lost.

This is the second newspaper in Montreal to eliminate a Sunday edition, after French-language La Presse stopped publishing its Sunday print version last year, The Toronto Star reminded.

Nonetheless, The Gazzette's cut comes a few days after the publication changed ownership as Postmedia Network Canada Corp. acquired Canwest's newspaper division, CTV Montreal noted.