Postmedia has redesigned its free commuter daily 24 Hours Toronto, repositioning the 12-year-old title as a destination for the so-called “young active” 25-45 demographic .
The redesign includes a new responsive web site housed at Toronto24Hours.ca. The publication’s emphasis is now on entertainment and the local news, with content covering Toronto events, social media trends, the local club scene, movies, concerts, reviews, transit, digest news and a city calendar.
Postmedia’s senior vice-president, Mike Power, said the redesign is intended to make 24 Hours the “perfect avenue” for targeting the hard-to-reach younger demographic, while the website is a dynamic news source for what is “trendy, cool and happening in and around Toronto.”
According to the most recent report from Vividata (formerly NADbank) 24 Hours has 441,000 Monday to Friday print readers 18+, and 66,000 digital weekday readers – the fewest of any of the city’s six daily publications and less than half of its freebie rival Metro (176,000).
The re-launch is being supported by Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, which is running a cover wrap on the re-launch issue.
Postmedia is supporting the revamp with an out-of-home, transit, TV and radio campaign, as well as a customized contest with daily prizes provided by Ripleys. The contest asks people to take a selfie with their copy of 24 Hours and post it to social media platforms using the hashtag #24HoursTO.
In July, Postmedia struck an exclusive distribution deal with Gateway Newsstands that sees the Monday to Friday publication distributed at more than 90 TTC and GO Transit locations, as well as within the city’s PATH system, Toronto’s underground walkway and Gateway Newsstands. Postmedia is running a hawker promotion at select locations from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. every day this week.
Postmedia also operates approximately 2,500 24 Hours boxes within the city.
