The future of local newsweeklies in Canada looked a little murkier Wednesday after Toronto weekly The Grid announced it’s shutting down.
The paper, a Torstar publication, launched in May, 2011, the successor to Torstar’s Eye Weekly, which had folded a week earlier.
Publisher and editor Laas Turnbull announced a number of changes to The Grid just a few months ago, designed to better reach its target 18-to-34 audience.
“We have been desperately trying to distance ourselves from the category of alternative news weekly,” he told Media In Canada.
“When people see something kind of tabloid-y and printed on newsprint then that is where their mind automatically goes. We want to set ourselves up as more of a weekly city news magazine, which is sort of how we have always looked at ourselves.”
Turnbull noted The Grid made most of its money from its events, rather than from ad sales.