This first
section was printed in our
Jan. 2/06 Newsletter #172
VILLAGE
LANDMARKS DISAPPEAR
Two long-standing landmarks of Bloor West Village recently
disappeared.
First, the office of The Villager
newspaper closed. (The paper itself continues to publish). The
Villager was the first community paper of the area, started
around the same time as the local BIA first named the area "Bloor
West Village". The office closure itself may have little impact; as
one more of the many "neighbourhood" newspapers published by the
giant (Toronto Star-owned) Metroland chain, the
paper retains little of its original "neighbourhood" flavour. Even
its columnists -- except for Luigi Benetton -- are "city-wide". In
fact, it seems to have morphed from a vehicle for neighbourhood news
to a cover page for city-wide sales, creating great business
opportunities for the paper recycling industry -- that is, when it
lands in the grey box and not the garden.
The second "landmark" was one that
was much less visible than The Villager, however, it was a
quirky favourite of mine: an apparently abandoned and forgotten sign
on the small retail complex located on Jane St., opposite the subway
station. For the last 15 or 20 years, the little plaza has continued
to advertise a short-lived, and long-departed business, the "Pamir
II" Afghan restaurant. It had good cooking, but somehow the owners
weren't aware that they had moved into what was then the only dry
area of Toronto.
The neighbourhood may not have been
ready to support an Afghan restaurant at the time. That, in
combination with the lack of liquor license, doomed the Pamir
II. However, their sign survived the business by almost 2 decades.
(Recently, the property owners were forced to remove this
non-productive sign to post one for a new tenant -- a sushi
restaurant). At the same time, a large "Villager" sign has
remained in front of the Villager's previous office location for
many years. One wonders if it will also stay as an echo for a
departed, former community newspaper.
Metroland publishes 100
community newspapers in Ontario, with a distribution of approximately 4.5
million copies/week
They publish additional
"specialty products" which "focus on a particular market segment" including
Forever Young, City Parent, eye weekly, Real Estate News, etc.
The company also
produces many consumer shows including
the Toronto Golf & Travel Show, the National
Bridal Shows,
More to the point, "Metroland
is one of the most sophisticated distributors of flyers and
circulars in Canada. Flyers are distributed to households in
advertiser-defined areas, primarily using Metroland's newspapers. Flyers
are also delivered in bags and hung on apartment doors in communities with
a high concentration of apartment buildings.
Metroland's flyer distribution volumes continue to grow to over 2.2
billion pieces. Distribution volumes have grown every year for 20
consecutive years.
All of the above
certainly helps justify
Metroland's slogan, proudly displayed on their main webpage:
"No
target in Southern Ontario is unreachable".
Like so many other aspects
of community life, most of your local services, your local information sources, and
local businesses now come to you courtesy of (and with policies from) Head Office,
located not-in-your-community.
The Canadian Community
Newspaper Association is a good source of information about the state of
community newspapers in Canada. In October, they reported that "The
Huntsville (ON)
Forester,
published by five generations of the Rice family over the past 125 years,
was sold to Metroland". The deal also included two other area
newspapers. The CCNA reported that as a result, there was only one
fifth-generation newspaper publishing family left in Ontario (The Perth
Courier). "Eighteen OCNA member newspapers have changed hands to date
this year, of which 15 have been purchased by corporate groups: 10 by
Metroland, three by Osprey and two by Sun Media. See
http://www.ccna.ca/news/details.asp?contentID=1855.
Other related links include
http://www.ccna.ca/ownership/ for a report on
Community newspaper ownership, and
http://www.rrj.ca/online/515/ for a
Ryerson Review of
Journalism article on Metroland.