Journal to end Sunday paper edition
The Journal de Montréal is going to end its Sunday paper edition – which seems an odd choice, since isn’t it usually Sundays that people read the paper over a leisurely breakfast or brunch?
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Kate
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Kevin 23:50 on 2022-12-08 Permalink
Catholaïcité!
Daisy 09:22 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
Le Devoir doesn’t have a Sunday edition either.
Ephraim 10:35 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
There never was a Sunday paper growing up. The big paper was always Saturday, large enough for 2 days of reading. But I guess I have another question… people still get the paper edition? I haven’t held a newspaper in my hands in at least a decade or more
Josh 11:16 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
I always wondered how it developed that the big US broadsheets put out their big editions of the week on Sundays, while in Canada the big newspaper day was Saturday. Maybe the idea was that most of the stuff in the Saturday edition (sections like Auto, Home, Travel or the big Op-Ed takeout most shops ran) had longer shelf lives and people could put them off until Sunday if they chose?
But yeah, the NYT, Boston Globe, LA Times etc all put out their biggest editions on Sundays while (when they all had paper editions), the Gazette, La Presse, the Toronto Star, the Globe etc. all went big on Saturdays. Never understood how that came to be.
Daniel 12:41 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
Josh, I’ve wondered the same thing. I know that in Spain and Argentina for example the big day with the magazine and special sections is/was Sunday. I believe it’s the same in the UK. The answer is ad money, of course. I’m not sure how, but it’s all going to go back to that.
I’m not as cynical as some when it comes to the news operation bending to the will of advertisers, but certainly when it comes to something as elemental and operational as when to put out the big edition, it was going to be all about ads.
U.S. newspapers did try to have it both ways by selling a “Sunday” edition on Saturday. (All the preprint special sections and coupons with a little fresh news that was then swapped out for the *actual* Sunday edition. So little happened or made the news on Saturdays that this wasn’t a huge job.) It was called the bulldog edition, supposedly because it was “aggressively” out ahead.
If you subscribed at home, you got a thin Saturday paper delivered. But if you were at the shop and picked up a single copy, you were far more likely to grab the bulldog. The Saturday paper just looked sad next to it. This helped the Sunday paper to boost its circulation numbers, since it was essentially on sale for two days. (And, yes, bigger circulation numbers = more ad money.)
I worked on this stuff for quite a while but typing it out now all seems so quaint in the age of instant news!
Kate 13:05 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
As Ephraim says, time was there was no paper here on Sundays. Doing research for the history stuff on my blog calendar, I got used to seeing zero Sunday editions from the Gazette and La Presse archives. I think it was a combination of the dominance of the Catholic church in Quebec and the influence of the “blue laws” in other parts of Canada that held off the Sunday editions until the 1980s.
DeWolf 13:11 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
@Ephraim, I get the paper version of Le Devoir every Saturday because it was offered for $2 extra per month when I got a digital subscription. It seemed like a good deal. And just like reading a real book, there’s something pleasurable in taking time to read an actual newspaper on the weekend. I spent enough time staring at screens as it is…
Ephraim 13:46 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
@DeWolf – And then getting the black oily ink marks off of everything 🙂
mare 14:20 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
I miss real printed newspapers. I used to read the whole paper, front to back, every day (except Sunday because Dutch newspapers only publish 6 days per week) even articles in the business and sport section sometimes. Now I probably read more newspaper articles, but from many different newspapers. I rarely go to the front page of the 3 newspapers I subscribe to, but get there via links on Twitter/Mastodon, in their daily emails, or from here and some other websites. So I read much more selectively, and more content I agree with.
CE 14:51 on 2022-12-09 Permalink
Years ago, I boarded in the house of an old man whose kids had long ago moved out so he had extra rooms that he let out to students at an incredibly low price. It was a very neighbourly house and we received the provincial and city newspaper every day. A neighbour came over every morning with the Globe and Mail and we’d all sit around reading the papers. Other people would drop in throughout the morning and read them too. By the end of the day, they were all marked up and coffee stained and cut up. If my landlord would go away, I’d put them all together for him and he’d read through all of them when he got back to get caught up on what happened.
I too miss the papers but I find that the print versions are now of such low quality that it’s not worth subscribing anymore.