Today we mark a momentous occasion at the North Shore News. After much soul searching and number crunching, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our Sunday edition.
The North Shore News will continue to publish twice a week – on Wednesdays and Fridays – and we will be concentrating our resources on those print editions, as well as on our digital news.
We began in 1969 as a once-a-week paper called the North Shore Shopper. We grew quickly, as demand for community news was rising and local businesses were looking for cost-effective ways to reach their customers. Business was good enough to support a second edition and in the early 1980s, the third edition, on Sunday, was added during an extended strike at the Vancouver Sun and Province.
Today, with a steady move of our flyer insert customers towards Wednesday and Friday and away from Sunday, as their preferred day of distribution, our decision to eliminate the Sunday edition became the clear course of action.
Today our growth comes from the digital space. We now have nearly as many unique individuals reading our website as live on the North Shore. This is a monumental achievement of which we are very proud. Readers’ appetite for community news and local advertising is as strong as ever, but the way you access that is slowly changing. Our online growth reflects that.
Our advertisers continue to find great value with us in print, but also in the digital realm. We have new competitors like Facebook and Google that attract massive audiences and provide advertising and marketing services; however, they employ no one here, don’t pay taxes here and certainly don’t sponsor events or employ our young people here. Local businesses are also dealing with their own disruptors, like Amazon, which similarly don’t help build community, donate to your sports teams, pay taxes or employ anyone here.
The new digital world does provide much promise, however, and we need to explore our opportunities there. Digital advertising is now our third largest revenue source. As such we will be working diligently to create deeper and more meaningful engagement with all of you online.
We will enhance our commitment to cover news at city hall, school board, the police, and coverage of local sports, entertainment, food, automotive, pets, and seniors’ issues. And to tell compelling stories about our citizens and their amazing accomplishments. We will remain the surest and most trusted source of community news and information here on the North Shore.
We will be upping the ante on our online publishing. You already get new stories, photos and community content from us daily and we will work towards being more responsive, more inclusive, more interactive and relevant than ever, both through our website and the many social media channels that we utilize. We are excited and confident in our future and look forward to serving you for many years to come.
Please join us in print Wednesday and Friday and online 24/7 at nsnews.com, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media channels.
