Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Town Crier about to be relaunched by new owners -- the paper's former employees

Jennifer Gardiner knew the end was near for The Town Crier when the paycheques stopped.
After 30 years of selling ads for the chain of community newspapers, she knew things weren’t going well for the papers and their parent company, Multimedia Nova Corp. The days were clearly numbered – readers complained about distribution, suppliers weren’t being paid and ad sales were down as salespeople quit in frustration.
But the papers were still profitable, and Ms. Gardiner would sit around talking with co-workers about how things would be different if they could take control of the nine papers themselves and leave Multimedia Nova to the stable of ethnic newspapers that comprised the bulk of the company’s revenue.
She’s about to find out if that’s true: She is one of five employees who have bought the chain of community newspapers at an auction after the sudden bankruptcy of Multimedia Nova this summer. The papers have been serving nine of Toronto’s toniest neighbourhoods, with editions targeted at Bloor West Village, Leaside-Rosedale and the Beach, but were shuttered in May because of troubles at the parent company.
(from the Globe and Mail)

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