Postmedia CEO defends shuttering of 24 newspapers

The CEO of Postmediais defendinga decision to shutter 24 newspapers 15 of them in eastern Ontario by mid-January.

The deal between between Postmedia and Torstar to swap dozens of community papers was announced Monday.

Postmediaimmediately announced it's closing two dozen of themincluding Orlans News, Ottawa East News, StittsvilleNews and Metro Ottawa, which published its finalprint edition thatsame day. More than 290 jobs are being eliminated.

It's kind of sad to watch the mighty newspaper industry of decades agosuddenly fall because everybody is, rightfully, going to digital.- Paul Godfrey, PostmediaCEO

The cuts are partof a general decline within the traditional newspaper industry,PostmediaCEO PaulGodfreytoldCBCRadio'sOttawa Morning.

"It's kind of sad to watch the mighty newspaper industry of decades agosuddenly fall because everybody is, rightfully, going to digital," he said.

Can't compete with Google, Facebook

WhilePostmedia'sdigital revenue is growing, Godfrey said much of the online revenue goes to large multinational corporations like Google and Facebook. Newspapers can't compete, especially since those companies don't pay Canadian taxes.

Monday's deal between the two media companiesallows them to acquire at least some of the advertising revenue the other had for the remaining papers in a region, Godfrey said.

Postmediahas asked the federal government to provide aid to the industry, but was ultimately turned down.

Godfrey said there was no point inputting the papers up for sale."Who would buy them? Look, we had to refinance our company about a year and a half ago, and there's no buyers in Canada," he said.

All about ads, professor says

"This was basically a deal between two big companies to create geographic monopolies in each area for the selling of print advertising,"said Christopher Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University.

"Most of the print advertising now in eastern Ontario has to be done throughPostmedia."

He said while community newspapers do covercommunity news and events, they're really a way to distribute flyers.The general public isn'tinterested in paying for newsonline, he said.

The Competition Bureau announced it would be looking into the transaction, but Godfrey said he doesn't expect any problems, considering the agency ultimately found no issues with Postmedia's acquisition of Sun Media's English language newspapers in 2015.