One of Canada’s largest and oldest daily newspapers is to stop publishing its newsprint issues on weekdays.
From 1 January next year, the 131-year-old French-language Montreal La Presse will only be available in print on Saturdays.
Its publisher, Guy Crevier, claims that the paper is the world’s first major daily to go completely digital on weekdays.*
He says his newspaper’s digital edition for tablet computers, called La Presse+, has become more successful than the print edition, with more than 460,000 people reading it across the week. After its launch 30 months ago, the number of paid print subscribers fell from 161,000 to 81,000.
Crevier said there are no plans to end the Saturday print edition, which attracts more advertising and different readers.
La Presse, which is owned by the Power Corporation, says its app will continue to be free even after it stops printing its weekday issues.
Mike Gasher, a journalism professor at Concordia University, is quoted by the Financial Post, as describing it as “a bold move” in which La Presse is leading a “wave of the future” in the newspaper industry.
The Toronto Star has just launched a free digital tablet edition with technological help from La Presse.
*In 2009, two US newspapers - the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Christian Science Monitor - stopped publishing daily print issues. In 2013, Lloyd’s List, the British-based title founded in 1734 to record news of the global shipping market, went digital-only.
Sources: La Presse press release/Financial Post/CBC
