SUN RISES IN SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO
By Adnews Staff
The Sun Media Corp. of Toronto is buying the London Free Press and Netmar Inc., a publisher of community papers, from the Blackburn Group Inc. of London, Ont. Sun Media signed a letter of intent for the purchase last week, but did not disclose the terms of the deal. The Free Press, one of Canada's oldest dailies, has a weekday circulation of 105,000, increasing to 135,000 on Saturdays. Netmar operates 14 shopping guides and four weekly papers in Ontario, a group of weekly papers in the Edmonton area and a distribution arm that reaches up to nine million Canadian homes. Sun Media, publisher of four tabloid newspapers, becomes the second-largest daily newspaper chain in Canada with the purchase in terms of circulation. The company now publishes 11 dailies, 84 weekly community papers and shopping guides and 15 farming and other specialty publications in Canada and the U.S. Sun titles include the Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa Sun papers as well as The Financial Post. The Blackburn family had put the Free Press and Netmar up for sale in late January. Other parties competing for the papers' ownership included Southam Inc. of Toronto and a Free Press employee group.