Voir to end print publication, no layoffs planned

Voir, the last survivor of Montreal’s alternative weekly newspapers, is abandoning its print edition to focus entirely on online content.

Nicholas Marin, president and general manager of Mishmash Media, which owns Voir and L’actualité, said there would not be any layoffs as a result of the change.

Marin said employees were told of the plan last week and were “consulted in the process.”

Three years ago, Voir went from being a weekly newspaper to a monthly glossy magazine.

On Thursday, Marin said it was a “question of priorities,” noting the costs related to the production of a print magazine. He said he believes in “a company that’s more content than container,” and it had to choose the medium that would best attract advertisers and reach readers. He said there could still be special paper editions — a cultural guide, for example.

“The basic strategy is still there, to bet on the quality of cultural news. I would say it’s more on the level of frequency that it will change. Culture is lived on a daily basis, and the monthly publication required a lot of effort, and we want to go back to a higher publication frequency.”

Editor-in-chief Simon Jodoin published a long message on Facebook Thursday, saying he has worked the past few weeks on a business plan with Marin.

“Printing a high-quality free magazine as we have been doing the past three years commits us to a fixed printing and distribution cost that’s enormous for a small media and cultural enterprise like ours,” he wrote. Presse Canadienne