Postmedia Network Canada Corp.[3] (also known as Postmedia Network, Postmedia News or Postmedia) is a foreign-owned Canadian-based media conglomerate[4] consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in English-language newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations. It is best known for being the owner of the National Post and the Financial Post. The company is headquartered at Postmedia Place on Bloor Street in Toronto.[5]
The company's strategy has seen its publications invest greater resources in digital news gathering and distribution, including expanded websites and digital news apps for smartphones and tablets.[6] This began with a revamp and redesign of the Ottawa Citizen, which debuted in 2014.[6]
The ownership group was assembled by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey[8] in 2010 to bid for the chain of newspapers being sold by the financially troubled Asper family's Canwest (the company's broadcasting assets were sold separately to Shaw Communications). Godfrey secured financial backing from a U.S. private equity firm, the Manhattan-based hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management—which owns 35 per cent—as well as IJNR Investment Trust, Nyppex and other investors.[8] The group completed a $1.1 billion transaction to acquire the chain from Canwest on July 13, 2010.[8]
On October 6, 2014, Postmedia's CEO Godfrey announced a deal to acquire the English-language operations of Sun Media.[8][9] The purchase received regulatory approval from the federal Competition Bureau on March 25, 2015,[10] even though the company manages competitive papers in several Canadian cities; while the Sun Media chain owns numerous other papers, four of its five Sun-branded tabloids operate in markets where Postmedia already publishes a broadsheet competitor.[9] Board chair Rod Phillips has cited the Vancouver market, in which the two main daily newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and The Province, have had common ownership for over 30 years, as evidence that the deal would not be anticompetitive.[9] The purchase did not include Sun Media's now-defunct Sun News Network.[9] The acquisition was approved by the Competition Bureau on March 25, 2015,[11] and closed on April 13.[12]
In 2016, the company sought to restructure its compensation plans and reduce spending by as much as 20%, after reporting a net loss of $99.4 million, or 35 cents per diluted share, in the fourth-quarter ended Aug 31, compared with a $54.1 million net loss, or 19 cents per diluted share, in the same period a year earlier. This resulted in 90 newsroom staff losing their jobs.[13]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Postmedia laid off approximately 80 employees and permanently closed 15 community publications while navigating the financial strain of COVID-19. While the company utilized government subsidies, they claim they were unable to offset the decline in revenue.[17]
Postmedia closed 15 community newspapers in Manitoba and Ontario’s Windsor-Essex area as the publications were no longer financially sustainable.[17] The publications included Manitoba’s Altona Red River Valley Echo, Carman Valley Leader, Gimli Intertake Spectator, Morden Times, Selkirk Journal, Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times, Winkler Times, and The Prairie Farmer, leaving Portage La Prairie as the company’s community presence in the province.[17] For Ontario, the closures included the Kingsville Reporter, Lakeshore News (Windsor-Essex area), LaSalle Post, Napanee Guide, Paris Star, Tecumseh Shoreline Week, and Tilbury Times.[17]
On February 17, 2022, Postmedia announced a definitive agreement to acquire Brunswick News Inc. (BNI). As well as several New Brunswick daily and weekly newspapers and "digital properties", BNI's assets included a parcel delivery business and "proprietary distribution software".[18]
In 2023, Postmedia announced it would be moving a dozen of its Alberta community papers to digital-only platforms, aiming for more outsourcing deals and laying off employees. The announcement was made January 18, 2023, during an internal memo to staff that was obtained by The Canadian Press, describing the measures as a part of a "transformation plan geared toward managing costs". Later that day, Postmedia said it had also sold the Calgary Herald building for $17.23 million to U-Haul Co. after trying to sell it for nearly a decade.[19]
In July 2023, Postmedia Network Canada Corp. and Nordstar Capital LP annonce that merger discussion between the two newspaper publishers will not continue.[20]
Operating branch
Postmedia News is the news branch of Postmedia Network, providing similar content to all of its subsidiary news outlets and websites. It is identified as a source on all of its subsidiary newspapers.[21] The news agency provides news, sports, entertainment, photography, financial and feature information and data to Postmedia Network's Canadian newspapers, online properties and a number of third party clients in Canada and the United States.[citation needed]
Criticism
Ties to right wing politics
In October 2018, it was reported that CEO Andrew MacLeod had declared the company "insufficiently conservative". That resulted in Kevin Libin, who had played an active role in defeating a union drive at the paper earlier that year,[22] taking charge of all political reporting and analysis in Postmedia newspapers to ensure the newspapers became more "reliably conservative."[23][24] In June 2019, Kevin Libin, comments editor and editorials editor of the National Post and Financial Post and a founding editor of Western Standard, was assigned “executive editor of Postmedia politics".[4] The role focuses on the coverage of federal politics in the National Post. In addition, it focuses on the coverage of federal and provincial politics in all of the dailies owned by Postmedia.[24]
In November 2019, Postmedia announced that 66% of its shares were now owned by Chatham Asset Management, an American media conglomerate which owns American Media, Inc. and is known for its close ties to the Republican party.[25][26]
Centralization and lack of localization
The creation of the Postmedia Network effectively concentrates more than 90 percent of all Canadian dailies and weeklies in one company, a fact lamented by J-Source, a Canadian media watchdog, in a 2015 online article.[27]
Margo Goodhand, a former Edmonton Journal editor-in-chief, wrote in a 2016 Walrus article that Postmedia executives were behind the outsourcing of Postmedia content to a site within an office in Canada for the sake of producing “Regina Leader-Post sports pages, Arts fronts for the Montreal Gazette, editorial pages for the Vancouver Sun”.[24][28] In a 2020 article by The New York Times, it was reported journalists had attested that since Chatham Asset Management took over, Postmedia had centralized operations and cut staff so that its 106 newspapers were essentially clones of one another.[29]
Relationship with the government
On November 27, 2018, The Competition Bureau applied for a court evaluation contesting Postmedia's claims of solicitor-client privilege, for records seized by the bureau during raids at the company's offices.[30] In March 2018, the Competition Bureau issued a court filing accusing Postmedia and Torstar of structuring the deal they made together with no-compete clauses in an effort to reduce competition in the newspaper industry in violation of the Competition Act.[31][32]
According to Marc Edge, author of The Postmedia Effect, the network received $9.9 million in government financial assistance in 2022. In the same year, Postmedia's operating income was only $13 million.[33]
Treatment of staff
In 2016, Paul Godfrey took a $900,000 bonus during a time when Postmedia laid off staff company-wide.[34] CFO Doug Lamb received $450,000, COO Andrew MecLeod $425,000, legal and general counsel Jeffrey Harr $300,000, and National Post president Gordon Fisher $200,000. Unions representing Canadian journalists wanted the Postmedia executives to reject the total $2,275,000 as the newspaper chain continued to cut staff.[35]
$458.2 million CAD (2022)[1]