When news of The Grid’s closure hit last week, everyone from Toronto mayoral candidates Olivia Chow and John Tory to TV personality Ben Mulroney immediately headed to the town square (aka Twitter) to express their sadness at the Torstar publication’s passing.
For editor-in-chief Laas Turnbull, this outpouring of affection for the three-year-old weekly city magazine—and not an alternative weekly, as Grid staffers were always quick to point out—was gratifying, though not entirely unexpected.
“We’ve always felt like we’d really connected with people in a very different way, almost a more personal level, just because accessibility is such a mantra for us,” said Turnbull. “I think we presented Toronto in a way that’s not only accessible, but familiar to the people that live and work in the city.
“It’s a bit of a silver lining, and I think it’s made all of us feel just a little bit better.”
Coupled with other recent moves, including the sale of its women’s publishing division, Harlequin Enterprises, (singled out as a “major contributor” to Torstar’s results in its 2013 annual report) to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for $455 million, the closure of The Grid seems to signal a retreat from non-core businesses by Torstar.
Company spokesman Bob Hepburn told Marketing that nobody from Torstar was available for questions because of holidays, but Torstar’s 2013 annual report painted an Edvard Munch picture for its print products.
Revenues for Torstar’s Star Media Group division, which houses The Grid along with flagship daily the Toronto Star, free daily Metro and Chinese-language daily Sing Tao, were down 6%—or $32 million—last year. Pre-tax earnings for the division were down 3% to $60 million, with Torstar citing an “excellent effort on cost control” helping largely offset revenue declines.
While Turnbull refused to go into specifics on The Grid’s financial performance, he did identify a lack of advertising support as a key factor in its demise. “We didn’t have an audience problem,” he said. “We had an advertising problem.”
As the new city magazine on the block, Turnbull said The Grid often found itself last on media buyers’ list when it came to (increasingly rare) print buys. While stressing that its losses “weren’t anywhere close to catastrophic,” he said there appeared to be no viable path forward.
“It wasn’t like we were losing gazillions of dollars, but the goal is to run the business in a positive way and we just didn’t see that happening at any point in the near future,” he said.
The Grid’s fate was ultimately sealed during a meeting between Turnbull and Star Media Group president John Cruickshank. Turnbull had conducted a business analysis and created a series of scenarios looking at how 2014 could play out for the publication from a financial standpoint.
“When we looked at the numbers it was clear to both of us that it was time to wind it down,” said Turnbull. “Anyone whose business is primarily reliant on print advertising revenues is in a very vulnerable position right now.”
Turnbull was working late last week to find positions for the 22 Grid staffers within Torstar, a difficult task in an organization that is shedding jobs. “It’s 2014 and this is the media industry, so it’s not like there are dozens and dozens of jobs, but there are certainly a few people here who are really well-qualified to apply for some of the jobs currently being posted,” he said.
The loss of The Grid leaves a sizeable void in Toronto’s media landscape, and is just the latest in a series of blows for the beleaguered print industry, which has led to the (only somewhat) ironic use of the Twitter hashtag #HugAJournalist.
Turnbull, whose career has included stops at the now-defunct Shift, Report on Business Magazine and independent publisher Brunico, says he relishes the challenge posed to traditional media.
“I love the challenge that media’s facing right now and there are two kinds of people: those who are terrified and have a deer-in-the-headlights look, and those who look around and say, ‘There’s so much opportunity here to innovate, and I can be part of the solution and provide a path forward.’ I’m definitely in the latter camp.
“There are too many smart people, and way too much money at stake, for those smart people to just give up and say, ‘Google and Facebook have won.’ That’s just not going to happen.”
