Come September, it’ll be time to party like it’s 1939 (and not because of the recession either): Toronto will once again have an evening daily newspaper. Sound like a crazy venture to launch during what is alternately referred to as tough economic times and the imminent death of print media? Well the folks behind t.o.night don’t think so.
In fact, as publisher John Cameron is quick to point out, it’s a venture that’s looking to capitalize on a virtually untapped market: evening transit commuters. While morning transit riders have six daily publications (free or paid) to occupy their eyes, there’s nothing new to read during the homeward journey. Enter t.o.night’s blend of entertainment listings along with all the news that broke after the morning dailies went to print.
On top of targeting this captive market, the paper will utilize something called the Internet for a certain part of its content. Like the current dailies, they will run CP and AP stories, but they are also looking to provide a print outlet for certain blogs in order to “add fresh content to the newspaper that is not offered by other print competitors,” as their media kit says.
Only blogTO has been confirmed as a contributor so far — they broke the story of t.o.night’s existence early this week — and Cameron says that the site "will act as our local bureau. One complaint a lot of people have with the free dailies is that they don’t have a lot of local coverage.” Perez Hilton’s name has also been bandied about as a blog-aggregated contributor, though Cameron says only that they are still in discussion with a few other blogs.
As for the daunting prospect of launching a paper in the midst of a recession (even if some folks are reporting that it’s over), Cameron borrows a line from Rahm Emanuel: “never let a good crisis go to waste.” What he means in this situation is that despite the media deathwatch headlines, commuter-paper Metro’s readership and ad sales are both up — Canadian readership reached one million back in 2008. And Cameron has been looking abroad — to London, Paris and Australia — where the evening free daily has seen resurgence in recent years.
The benefit to an evening paper, as Cameron sees it, is that aside from already knowing what’s been covered by everyone else, they have access to almost 12 hours more of world news — specifically economic news from when the markets open as well as what goes on in, say, the Middle East — before they have to go to press at 11am.
While one might suggest that all of this information is more readily available throughout the day on countless websites, Cameron counters that not everyone works a job in which they are in front of a computer — or even an unblocked computer — all day. “And since there’s no WiFi or cell phone reception on the subway yet, there’s still all that time you’re locked in a dark and dreary tunnel.”
So, yeah, maybe t.o.night’s not a crazy idea after all. But it’s only been a little over three years since the death of Toronto’s last free daily, Dose (which became an online-only operation). Admittedly, t.o.night is after a broader audience, and they seem to be operating with considerably less overhead — even if they are going to have retro pageboys handing out papers outside of subway stations.
After all, it’s been 38 years since we last had an evening daily; and keep in mind that when the Toronto Telegram died, rising Phoenix-like from its ashes the very next week was a little tabloid called the Toronto Sun. Maybe t.o.night will similarly help restore the karmic balance of Toronto’s print media universe.