February 18, 1980 Page seven or eee on Newspaper Chain Even the comics and features were packaged ‘in Toronto and sent out to publishers, he said adding that if a publisher wanted to run a feature from out- side the package he would be bluntly asked; ““How many new readers will it add?’’ Lamb spent over twenty years at the Thomson owned Orillia Packet and but when it became clear Lamb’s associates were serious about the move he resigned. Penny-pinching _ efforts extended to other quarters as well. Legend has it that at one Thomson plant, women workers were told to use less toilet paper in a bid to cut costs. particularly true of Thom- son. ‘‘Newspapers are pulling the maximum out of their communities and giving the minimum in return,’’ it says, ‘‘this is what, in contempory parlance is called a rip-off.’’ In short, newspaper pro- fits are growing enormous- lishers to their newspapers has been an ‘‘odd compund of patrician responsibility and estate planning ‘‘to quote a recent story in the Globe and Mail. ‘’While the previous owners saw their paper as a good investment. they were also proud of their quality and opposed and kind of editor- ial interference,’’ the story said. Ottawa Journal Che Globe and Mail Winnipeg Free Press meApore ONCE ise Herald ols Che Vancouver Sun Pictoria Times The Daily aes Colonist. Newspapers concerned with Excellence... EP Publications Limited In 1979 he increased his profits to 56 million The chain which scored increasing profits andsteady expansion until 1972, is now suffering _ financial woes. The last decade has brought F.P. no further aquisitions and profits have been declining steadily. — - In 1978 and 1979, three F.P. papers, the Ottawa Journal, the Montreal Star and the Vancouver Sun were all hit with labour walkouts. While the Sun and the Journal continued fifty CGiinadian newspapers oria Daily Colonist, the blobe and Mail. ' to what critics have called ‘“‘Thomson clones.’’ The papers are stripped of their individual face and are made look-a-likes of dozens of journals in Thomson’s expanding chain. “By 1971, . Thomson newspapers were almost interchangeable; one had to read the mast head banners to tell them apart,’’ says James Lamb in his recent hook. Press Gang: Post War Life n the World of Canadian Newpapers. Times and says that most of the newspaper’s energy was spent on meeting profit quotas set down by the head office in Toronto. Reporters spent so much time writing ‘‘boilerplate’’ (stories which were com- plimentary to advertizers) that they had little time left for actual reporting. Lamb finally left the Packet and Times in 1971, disgusted by a head office attempt to squeeze more profit out of the papers at the expense of it’s carrier boys. “‘The Thomson groups was the greatest money- making organization in the country outside the Cana- dian Mint,’’ he says. ‘‘The idea of this newspaper co- lossus wrestling some grubby-faced kid for another half-cent of - his - meagre earnings struck me as enormously funny.’’ But if Thomson cares little about his news pro- duct and his employees, he does pay close attention to the bottom line of the balance sheet. In 1978, Thomson reaped profits of $47.3 million and by 1979 he increased his figure to $56.5 million. It is no wonder that Kenneth’s father, Roy, (who got his son started in the news- papers business) observed that owning a communi- cation business was like ‘having a license to print your own money.”’ The Senate Report on the Mass Media brought out in 1970 concurred with the. elder Thomson, noting the newspaper ownership gen- erates profits which are on the average, twice that of a factory or a retailing outlet. The Senate Report pointed out another trend amongst monopoly news- paper chains which seems ly. They can afford to plow back more money to make a better product—but they aren't. Syndicated columnist Douglas Fischer says that when he was an MP for the constituency _of Thunder Bay a number of years ago, he asked Roy Thomson, who owned Thunder Bay’s newspaper, if he could include more columns about federal politics in his paper. the local citizens had a high degree of interest in the subject. Thomson replied, “Frankly, what would be the point of it? It wouldn’t sell one more paper in the market areas?’’ ‘’Precisely,’’ notes the Senate Report, ‘’The paper is earning a pile already; why reduce profits by putting out a better pro- duct?’’ The attitude of FP pub- Fischer argued that ~ to publish at strike’s end, the Star folded after in- curring losses estimated to be $30 million. In addition, the Calgary Albertan, once that city’s number has fallen one newspaper, behind the Southam owned Calgary Herald in circulation and is losing money.’ Exactly how Kenneth Thomson willattempt to put the struggling chain back on its feet again is anyone’s guess. If history is a beacon, the answer will likely involve the paring down of local reporting staff, the addition of cheap nationally and internationally syndicated columns and perhaps a greater number of adver- tisements per pages of copy. In any case, it is clear Kenneth Thomson has be- come lord of the Canadian newspaper business.