In a bid to stay competitive and keep pace with the emerging world of online communications, Southam has teamed up with u.s.-based Prodigy to develop a new commercial online service for the Canadian market.
The yet-to-be-named service, which is scheduled to launch early next year, will carry a range of content common to online services – in addition to electronic versions of some, if not all, of Southam’s daily newspapers.
Southam, which owns 17 dailies across Canada, is the country’s largest newspaper publisher.
Sam Feuer, director of product and content, Southam Information and Technology Group, says the firm has developed a long-term strategy ‘to be in a position of delivering service to our clients, whether readers or advertisers, through whatever channels those clients operate.’
Technology and content for this new service will be similar to Prodigy’s, but will be Canadian.
Feuer says the service might include some Prodigy content that is not border-related, such as entertainment and sports.
Having as many of the 17 dailies as possible join the project is also part of the plan.
Feuer says Southam’s daily newspapers have a total circulation of 1,459,000.
Several of the papers including The Vancouver Sun and The Ottawa Citizen, have already tested sites on the World Wide Web, so, for them, going on a commercial service will not be a big step.
The service will likely have at least two subscriber options, one for newspaper access only and another for access to the service.
Service subscribers would be required to pay an additional fee to get access to the newspapers.
Southam chose to work with Prodigy to create the new service because of its good track record, says Andy Walker, of Canada Bulletin Board, a newsgroup and chat service created by Southam Electronic Publishing and offered on Prodigy.
Walker says Prodigy has been around for about a decade, is family-oriented, and has, most importantly, advertising.
Sharon Burnside, managing editor at The Ottawa Citizen, has no objection to going online.
Burnside says most newspapers are already pursuing the idea of going online.
‘There are no restrictions online,’ Burnside says. ‘It expands our publishing time to 24 hours a day.’
Feuer says advertising, both local and national, for the online newspapers will most likely be handled the same way it is today.
The newspapers will likely handle their own local advertising, and Aditus, Southam’s national advertising division, will handle all national advertising.
(Feuer says national advertisers are already on board to place ads on the new service, but he would not release the names.)
Feuer says all the details on advertising have not been hammered out yet.
‘The issue for online advertising isn’t space anymore, it’s how you can promote yourself without overwhelming the client [the reader,]’ he says.
‘Online, you have more opportunities to have advertising that is helpful, as opposed to in-your-face.’
Feuer says there is going to be plenty of experimentation in this area.
Southam is not the only publisher trying to break into the online universe.
Torstar has begun research and has had discussions with organizations already online.
Mike Pierry, assistant director of Digital Media at Torstar, says the project is in its infant stages and there is no way of knowing when The Toronto Star will go online or what form it will take.
The Digital Media division of Torstar was set up about two months ago to start this project.
‘The new division is charged with finding new ways in which to carry the traditional paper into information highway usages,’ Pierry says.
The Globe and Mail, Thomson Newspapers’ flagship newspaper, has been online since 1980 on Thomson’s Globe Information Services.
More recently, the Globe joined the newly created Spirit site on the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.
Spirit is co-owned by 12 Canadian organizations that have come together to promote the information industry.