VP extols virtues of community news, niche markets

BY BRENT FOX

The Advertiser

NovaNewsNow.com

Newspapers remain exciting and profitable in Canada. That’s what Transcontinental Media senior vice-president 
newspaper group Marc-Noël Ouellette told Acadia University business students in Wolfville March 13 as part of the school’s Distinguished Business Speakers series.

Transcontinental produces newspapers, magazines and operates websites. The company has annual revenues of $2.3 billion and 14,500 employees in Canada, the United States and Mexico. It’s the largest publisher of educational books in Canada.

In a lively and earthy presentation, Ouellette addressed the question, ‘Are Newspapers Old or New Media?’

Ouellette heads up the company’s media division with daily and weekly newspapers in seven provinces. These include Valley weeklies such as The Kings County Advertiser, The Kings County Register and The Hants Journal, as well as the new free five-day-a-week Metro edition in Halifax.

In the newspaper field, Ouellette pointed out that editorial decisions are local and independent - local products with local reporters - with accounting, production and payroll being centralized and streamlined. It’s efficient and rather profitable, he said.

In fact, he noted, “newspapers as a whole in Canada remain extremely profitable.”

In fact, the Metro concept is worldwide. “Metro is the wave of the future,” Ouellette said, referring to the free daily. Transcontinental’s weeklies in Quebec are free and come in a weekly flyer bag. The company had begun by printing and distributing flyers in the mid-1970s.

Responding to a question from the students, Ouellette said that Transcontinental is a partner in Montreal and in Halifax regarding the Metro venture.

In Halifax, Metro will take the place of the recently closed Daily News. Being a business class, no one asked details about the paper’s closure, but Ouellette volunteered that the publication was losing millions and despite money being put into it, it wasn’t feasible in a small market with an already well-established family daily.

Newspapers are community institutions

Ouellette pointed out that local newspapers are different from other businesses. “Newspapers are special,” he said. “They have a meaning to the community. They’re an institution.”

Transcontinental newspapers, he said, are trusted, comprehensive and unique. Their local news is a niche market.

“Local news is only available in local papers,” Ouellette said. As well, “newspapers in Canada are very, very important and influential.” They are Canadians’ number one source of information. People read them for information from both editorial and advertising components.

But cultural elements can affect markets. Ouellette noted, for example, that whereas Sunday newspapers are big in the United States, they aren’t here in Canada, where Saturday papers are the preferred read.

He added that newspapers, magazines and flyers aren’t all the company is about. Readers access the newspapers’ websites increasingly.

From his personal experience and observations, Ouellette advised the students that “differentiation is a must” in business. Companies make their names on what they do differently from their competitors whether, for example, it’s a car rental group picking up its clients or hamburger outlets allowing the customer to have it his or her way.

As well, he advised that they keep looking for needs that could develop into business opportunities. “Opportunity is everywhere,” he said. “Any time you say, ‘why hasn’t somebody invented something?’, do it.”