A10 - Sunday, April 17, 1983 - North Shore News

Six newsfilled years of Sundays .. .

THE BIRTH of mainland British Columbia’s first successful Sunday newspaper was a modest affair. But the somewhat underweight baby which first saw the light of day on April 17, 1977 has. never

looked back.

By NOEL WRIGHT

Outside Montreal, Sunday newspapers were virtually non-existent in this country six years ago, the single venerable exception in the west being the Victoria Colonist.

In Britain and Europe Sunday newspapers have been a hallowed tradition for many decades and, in most cases, command the highest readership of the entire week. But for some unknown reason the idea had never taken root in English-speaking Canada.

At that time the eight- year-old North Shore News had grown to be a perky community tabloid, published each Wednesday in a fiercely competitive market.

The North Shore was served, in addition, by two older and strongly en- trenched community papers — the twice-weekly Citizen (Wednesdays and Fridays) and the 30-year-old Times of North and West Vancouver, formerly the Lions Gate Times of West Vancouver.

In February, 1977, with considerable preliminary fanfare, the Times also went twice-weekly by launching a tabloid Sunday Times — an ambitiously conceived project which was to have a life of exactly two months.

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WHICH DAY?

Meanwhile, the North Shore News had already been exploring for a number of months the possibility of a second weekly edition of its own. Early in the new year it became obvious that this major expansion was now essential in order to maintain

the paper's competitive position.

The big question was: which day to publish?

Friday was ruled out because of the competition from the weekend Citizen.

Saturday was given long and careful consideration. In the end, however, the likelihood of being “buried” by the heavy weekend edition of the Vancouver Sun eliminated Saturday, too.

That left only Sunday, a highly adventurous Proposition at the time in view of the almost total lack of precedents.

However, the News was fortunate in having built over the years an excellent carrier network, so that Sunday distribution in itself posed no real problem. And the novelty of providing a lively package of local news, commentary and _ other weekend reading material each Sunday morning was an attractive challenge for the editorial staff.

After 10 weeks of planning

Si,

to right: publisher

1977 MANAGEMENT TEAM members who — backed up by the paper's then staff of

around 40 — planned and Launched the Sunday News edition on April 17, 1977. Left

Peter Speck, advertising director (now associate publisher) Bob

Graham and editor-in-chief Noel Wright—as they looked in those days.

the first edition of the Sunday News was finally in the hands of the carriers and being delivered to readers’ doors throughout North and West Vancouver by 10 a.m., Sunday, April 17, 1977. It has appeared every Sunday since that date.

SLIM ISSUE

Over the course of the 313 editions published over the past six years the paper has come a long way.

That first Sunday News ran to a slim 20 pages. About one third of them were devoted to assorted North Shore news items, including a picture and story of a bad West Vancouver house fire.

The sports “section” amounted to all of half a page and the classified ads stretched to just two pages. There was a “Mailbox” page and the ever-popular “What's Going On” calendar, together with our first weekend Real Estate Guide (today retitled

“Home”) — but as yet no editorial page or regular name columnists. Also

missing were such features as entertainment, travel, automotive and TV listings.

Nevertheless, reader re- action to the new venture was swift and encouraging. Exactly one week later the rival Times ceased publication of both its mid- week and weekend editions, leaving only the Wednesday- Friday Citizen to compete with the Wednesday-Sunday News.

For the next two years the

Sunday News grew steadily, averaging some 36 pages per issue with new weekend reading features constantly being added. Then came the eight-month strike of the Vancouver Sun and Province.

Both weekly editions of the News promptly exploded as the big regular advertisers of the shut-down dailies hastily transferred their advertising to Greater Vancouver's three or four major community papers. The Sunday News made particularly strong = gains

Y. FRANKS & Melsusmnator

bring you this great REFRIGERATOR VALUE

‘because of the attraction of it publication day for the large supermarket and drug- store chains promoting their “Monday morning specials.”

120 PAGES

From November 1978 to the settlement of the strike in July 1979 the paper rarely dropped below 92 to 9 Pages per issue, and regularly went as high as 112 to 120. Many additional features were added, in- cluding wire service stores and pictures of world and mational news, and for reader convenience the paper was divided into. its present three separate sections — news and opinion, sport and lifestyles.

With the settlement of the Pacific Press strike the size of the Sunday News and its companion mid-week edition naturally dropped back somewhat. But they still remained at around double their pre-strike size. Many of the big new ad-

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