The Quebecor group will no longer publish the paper edition of its news media 24 hours, which had been distributed free of charge for 20 years in metro stations and on the public transport network in Montreal.
The end of the paper edition of the 24 hours, which had already been reduced to a single publication per week for two years, also occurs in the wake of the 240 job cuts in Quebecor’s media activities which were announced in mid-February. .
The 24 hours newspaper had been launched by Quebecor in 2003 to compete with the free daily Métro, launched two years earlier by the printer and publisher Transcontinental, in the market of hundreds of thousands of users of the metro and public transport in Montreal. .
At their peak, around the turn of the 2010s, these two “free subway newspapers”, as they were known at the time, reportedly distributed up to 150,000 copies a weekday in total, reaching nearly 350,000 readers per day.
Subsequently, the rise in popularity of digital media accessible on smart phones and the implementation of telephone coverage and wireless internet throughout the métro network diverted the interest of public transport users for printed newspapers, even distributed free of charge.
The coup de grace came three years ago, with the arrival of health restrictions that caused a marked and sudden drop in public transport ridership.
This is also what motivated Quebecor, in February 2021, to reduce the frequency of publication of the 24-hour newspaper to a single paper issue per week – on Thursdays – while refocusing its dissemination of information and reports on the website. 24heures.ca.
This reprieve for the printed version of the 24 hours will finally last two years, until the publication of its last issue on Thursday, March 23.
Meanwhile, in its recent 2022 year-end financial results, Quebecor reported operating income (adjusted EBITDA) in its Media segment down 48% annualized in the fourth quarter, and down 70% for full year 2022 compared to 2021.
As for the main competitor of the 24 hours, the newspaper Métro, the collapse of the print media market among public transport users led to a change of ownership in 2017, from the Transcontinental group to the Montreal company Métro Média.
Since then, Métro Média has consolidated its activities with the Métro newspaper – reduced to two publications per week – and a dozen neighborhood newspapers in hybrid distribution: still on paper (weekly), but increasingly on the web and social networks .
