National advertisers needn’t worry themselves about Hollinger’s decision to sell off a slew of its newspaper holdings – at least, not yet. That appears to be the consensus among planners at some of Canada’s top media management firms.
The Toronto-based newspaper owner announced plans April 25 to sell most of its community newspapers as well as some city papers, including The Kingston Whig-Standard and the St. Catharines Standard.
"There are some good things for advertisers," says David Cairns, president of Toronto-based media management firm Carat Cairns, of the announcement. "We might well be seeing a shift back to multi-ownership…which is probably good for competition and pricing in the marketplace."
He says as long as the National Post – the jewel in Hollinger’s media crown – is not affected, the sell-off should not have a serious impact on national advertisers. "Local community and smaller publications don’t tend to get a lot of national advertising anyway," says Cairns.
But Cairns wonders whether, down the line, Hollinger will continue to publish stand-alone dailies in markets such as Calgary or Edmonton, when it might be more cost-effective for the company to publish regional editions of the Post.
David Chung, president of Toronto-based MaxxMedia, says he doesn’t see any immediate impact on national advertisers as a result of the sell-off. But he predicts Hollinger’s planned segue into electronic media will have dramatic consequences, for both advertisers and the competition alike.
For his part, Mark Sherman, president of Toronto-based Media Experts, says it’s difficult to gauge the impact on advertisers until it’s known who’s buying.
"It’s possible that whoever buys these papers may be able to do more with them and make them more viable than Hollinger has," says Sherman. "Ultimately, a new owner would probably be a good thing."
The issue of media ownership is a hot topic of late, especially now that both Hollinger and Thomson Newspapers have put many of their assets on the block. Heritage Minister Sheila Copps recently promised a full-scale review of ownership and concentration regulations across all media.
