Canada's troubled newspaper publisher, Postmedia Network, reported another set of bad numbers last week. Declining advertising revenues, down 13.3% on a year ago, resulted in a net loss of $49.8m (£27.5m) in the fourth quarter.
The company, led by president and CEO Paul Godfrey, is undergoing a substantial transformation. Earlier this month, it announced the acquisition of 175 newspapers from Quebecor. The deal is awaiting regulatory approval.
Godfrey has said he no longer considers rival newspapers as the company's biggest competitors, believing that Google and Facebook are the new rivals for readers' attention.
But Postmedia's fourth-quarter digital revenues declined year on year, falling by 5.3%.
A Globe & Mail profile of Godfrey points out that he will need all his political skills and a measure of luck to complete the Quebecor deal.
It has raised concerns about media concentration inthree cities - Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa - and there are also questions about the influence of US hedge funds, which own large stakes in Postmedia.
But Godfrey, 75, believe the deal is essential in order to provide Postmedia with the scale to compete digitally with foreign-based new media giants.
He is quoted as saying: "We've got to convince the competition bureau that this makes sense for Canadians."
