Notice from the Sherbrooke Record published April 22 saying it would move to a once-a-week schedule.
Quebec’s other English-language daily newspaper will soon no longer be that. This week, the Sherbrooke Record sent a letter to subscribers saying it would only produce print editions on Fridays starting in May.
Currently, the Record publishes in print five days a week (Monday to Friday).
The letter from publisher Sharon McCully explicitly states that “this is not a reduction in news” and breaking news would still be produced online. Instead, it is a way to cut production costs that are increasingly hard to justify for many daily newspapers. Others like La Presse and La Tribune, Sherbrooke’s French-language daily, have already eliminated print editions entirely and gone fully online.
The decision can’t come as much of a surprise. The paper has a community weekly feel to it anyway, and recent non-Friday editions have been only 12 pages long. Being a daily print publication comes with some prestige, but we’re long past the point when that prestige is worth the cost. (And La Presse and others have shown that you can still have that prestige even if you don’t have the paper.)
Brome County News, which was distributed with the Tuesday edition of the Record, will still be produced and distributed on Tuesdays, the note reads, and will also be included in the Friday Record along with the Record’s weekend edition.
UPDATE: In an interview with CBC’s Quebec AM, publisher Sharon McCully points to various reasons for the change, including the fact that the Record could no longer share distribution resources with the Montreal Gazette and had to rely on Canada Post instead, increasing those costs.
To be honest, I am shocked that there are many print newspapers left at all. The demographics make it clear that print news is up against time and time is always going to win. Average print news reader is in their 60s now, and somewhere about 75% of all readers are on the wrong side of 50. So every year, print loses more readers than it gains as the old readers literally (and sadly) die off.
The most important thing is with the shift in age, the value of the advertising space drops quickly. it is, example, more likely that people who see your ads are on fixed incomes or are going through the point in life where they are getting rid of things rather than accumulating them. These are the people who have their “car for the rest of their life” and they sold their empty nest homes and have moved on to small condos or even the Springfield Retirement Castle. They aren’t rushing out to buy the latest whatever. So the value of the ad space diminishes faster than the readership.
I would hope that they are able to turn the online presence into a money making venture, to keep reporting the regional news that needs reporting. It might help them to connect with younger readers and to add value for advertisers over time.
This business decision is unlikely to be caused by the internet. Business is very bad right now and for many media owners it will take deep pockets and dedication to continue. It’s starting to feel like the recession of the 1980s. “Brace for Impact!”
The Record has a long and proud history that will continue on a new platform. I wish them the very best.
Losing so many things, it seems. What’s new that’s coming up, other than robots taking over all the creative jobs?
We have to reduce screen time. This is not a good thing. Also people who don’t have access to internet don’t have access to daily local news. That paper cover many rural areas where internet is not available, very expensive or very slow. I was thinking they gain bilingual subscribers when La Tribune cancel their printed paper.
100% of Quebec households have access to high-speed internet access since 2022 (in that there is no technical limitation to such access), and three quarters of Canadians 75 and over use the internet. Sure, that leaves a non-trivial amount who don’t, but that’s not enough to justify a newspaper like the Sherbrooke Record being forced to print five times a week for a population that is only about 4,000 unilingual anglophones, 12,000 anglophones by mother tongue and 100,000 people who understand English.
It sucks for people who like physical newspapers, but the Record held on for far longer than similar newspapers.