SaltWire’s financial woes a sign of bigger problems in the newspaper business: expert

CITYnews halifax / By The Canadian Press

HALIFAX — A media expert says the decision by Atlantic Canada’s largest newspaper company to seek protection from its creditors is another sign of the accelerating decline of the business.

April Lindgren, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, was commenting on the financial woes of SaltWire Network Inc., which is also facing a legal challenge from a private equity fund that announced Monday it had started insolvency proceedings against the Halifax-based company.

The Fiera Private Debt Fund claims in court documents that SaltWire owes the firm tens of millions of dollars after several years of mismanagement.

Lindgren, principal investigator for the Local News Research Project, says many media businesses resumed cutting costs and shutting down operations after the pandemic, when government subsidies dried up.

The professor says advertising revenue has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and potential readers have shown a reluctance to pay for digital subscriptions.

As a result, Lindgren says, the mainstream media’s business model remains in tatters as digital platforms like Meta and Google continue to gobble up advertising dollars.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press