Community Review shuttered in local ad flyer delivery shift

The Free Press’s parent company is shuttering its weekly community paper and flyer distribution in what some expect to be a wave of closures to hit the Canadian newspaper industry.

As of July 24, the Free Press will no longer deliver flyer inserts to 200,000 Manitoba households and mark the last edition of the Free Press Community Review.

Layoffs are happening this week and next. FP Newspapers chief executive officer Mike Power didn’t provide a final number Monday, but said the layoffs will impact various departments.

The company’s other newspapers — Free Press, Brandon Sun and Carillon — will continue production as normal. Layoffs won’t impact those newsrooms.

Power pointed to a drastic shift in flyer circulation, which began in June when TC Transcontinental — which touts itself as Canada’s largest printer — began bundling its flyers and shipping them straight to Manitoba households via Canada Post, instead of using community newspapers as distributors.

“(The) flyer business has eroded, essentially, overnight,” Power said.

TC Transcontinental brands its flyer bundles as “Raddar.” It unveiled Raddar in Montreal three years ago, before expanding across Quebec and Ontario.

In May, it announced it would expand Raddar nationally. It now sends leaflets with different companies’ advertised offerings to some 350,000 Manitoba households.

“I do feel badly that we’ve had to make some tough decisions, that it’s impacted some of our employees as well as … contractors,” Power said. “We really felt there was no other path forward. We looked at every possible option before making this decision.”

Flyers accounted for up to 10 per cent of FP Newspapers’ revenue, he said.

The free community papers focused on local stories and columns. At one point, there were six titles zoned to specific areas within Winnipeg and its outskirts. In 2022, those titles were rebranded into two editions: one each for east and west Winnipeg.

Community Review employed four people. Two of the staff will be offered jobs within the Free Press.

The distribution change will impact 817 delivery contractors, Power said.

“We’ll be trying to look at how we can enhance the content in the Free Press with some of the things Community Review was doing,” he said, adding plans haven’t been finalized.

Power said the daily print publications are “still strong.” The company is leaning into digital and launching different initiatives, he said, but noted print still drew the most revenue.

Power said he’s been on the phone with publishers across Canada about TC Transcontinental’s move to distribute the flyers it prints. He expects other community newspapers’ flyer businesses to also close.

News Media Canada, which represents newspaper publishers, is trying to arrange meetings with federal ministers about the impact to the industry. It wants Ottawa to direct Canada Post to give newspapers the same rates Raddar receives.

It also met with the Competition Bureau last month.

Paul Deegan, News Media Canada’s president, is forecasting hundreds of layoffs across Canada due to the change.

Flyers generally cover 10 per cent to 25 per cent of newspaper revenues, he said. Around nine million copies of weekly newspapers circulate across Canada. (Another 15 million dailies are distributed.)

“Canada Post is a Crown corporation. It should be acting in the public interest,” Deegan said. “It is not in the public interest at all to … deprive newspapers of revenue that they’ve had for many, many years.”

Canada Post’s deal with TC Transcontinental is a “kick in the teeth” following COVID-19 pandemic-era inflation of printing, Deegan added.

Raddar operates in a “very competitive” landscape and has a place for local news, said Patrick Brayley, TC Transcontinental’s chief operating officer. “Traditional flyer distribution (is) no longer … a sustainable business model.”

He cited higher distribution costs and regulatory changes, such as recycling fee cost increases. The print industry also competes with digital platforms.

In May, Postmedia announced it would no longer distribute flyers. Its rollback caused TC Transcontinental to expand its direct-to-household leaflet nationally, Brayley said.

More than 300 companies, such as grocery chains, place advertisements in the flyers. Raddar has at least 500 weekly versions to match the areas it covers.

TC Transcontinental inked a deal with Toronto Star publisher Torstar when Raddar expanded through Ontario, Brayley said. Some of the news chain’s content appears in the pamphlets.

There will still be flyers in FP Newspapers’ daily publications, albeit less of them, Power said.

Losing weekly community newspapers that are made for advertising distribution doesn’t really contribute to news deserts, said Dwayne Winseck, a Carleton University journalism and communication professor.

It’s the latest in an ongoing trend of community newspaper closures, he added. “We’ve got a bigger structural crisis of journalism that needs to be addressed.”

Winseck called for greater government measures to assist newspapers’ bottom lines, including giving rebates to youth subscribers and becoming heavier-handed with the federal Online News Act.

News Media Canada counted 603 outlet closures between 2008 and Oct. 1, 2025. A majority of those — 440 — were community newspapers publishing less than five times a week.

Unifor, the union representing FP Newspapers workers, declined to comment, saying it was waiting for more details.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com