{"id":33589,"date":"2023-09-21T17:53:31","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T21:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33589"},"modified":"2023-09-21T17:53:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T21:53:32","slug":"aurora-banner-towns-oldest-surviving-business-placed-into-bankruptcy-protection-after-nearly-160-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-banner-towns-oldest-surviving-business-placed-into-bankruptcy-protection-after-nearly-160-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Banner, Town\u2019s oldest-surviving business, placed into bankruptcy protection after nearly 160 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After nearly 160 years of serving the community, Metroland Media has turned the page on The Aurora Banner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, Torstar\u2019s Brandon Grosvenor announced Metroland Newspapers had been placed into bankruptcy and its 70 weekly newspapers, including The Aurora Banner and The Newmarket Era, would go to a strictly digital format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe difficult decision comes after years of effort and innovation to try and sustain our weekly newspapers in spite of decreasing revenue,\u201d he said. \u201cThe impact of big tech\u2019s dominance as a media choice, even for local marketers, has affected the entire industry. Paired with the unrecoverable decline in flyer usage during the pandemic, we can no longer support the community print\/distribution channel and are moving forward with a digital-only model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means we have closed Metroland\u2019s community print publishing and advertising\/flyer distribution operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want you to know that our important local journalism continues through Metroland\u2019s community news websites and our six subscriber-based daily newspapers: the Hamilton Spectator, the Peterborough Examiner, the Waterloo Region Record, the Welland Tribune, the Niagara Falls Review and the St. Catharines Standard. We also have the support of the Toronto Star to ensure the stories of our communities are told.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Grosvenor\u2019s announcement, Metroland Media Editorial Vice President Lee Ann Waterman, published what they described as \u201cA Letter to Our Readers,\u201d and said they were \u201cconfident this restructuring will make Metroland a sustainable business moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a sad day for me personally, as I know it is for Metroland journalists and those who worked beside us to bring the news to your doorstep,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve spent 25-plus years in community journalism, but I still remember the thrill of seeing my byline in print, above a story that could raise awareness or offer insight, bring tears, smiles or even outrage to readers of the Gravenhurst Banner, Bracebridge Examiner or New Hamburg Independent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd it was my privilege to lead teams of award-winning journalists as managing editor of the Orangeville Banner and editor-in-chief of our 11 newspapers in York Region. There is nothing quite like the energy of a newsroom working on something big \u2013 an election, a breaking news event, investigative coverage to expose injustices or wrongdoings. And seeing the results of that work on the printed page was always something of a rush. Our newsrooms became digital first \u2013 meaning all stories, big or small, were available on our websites before they were published in print, and, as advertising dollars and newspapers shrunk, many stories never made it to print at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pandemic and continued losses in revenue pushed us out of our newsrooms and left us working virtually. Our ranks have dwindled dramatically. Becoming a digital-only business is the next step in our evolution \u2013 precipitated by the loss of revenue from print advertising and our flyer distribution business, as well as the stranglehold Big Tech has on digital advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our newspapers are gone but we are still here. We are still committed to community journalism, to writing stories that engage and inform our readers and shed light on issues of importance to our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nearly 160 years of serving the community, Metroland Media has turned the page on The Aurora Banner. On Friday, Torstar\u2019s Brandon Grosvenor announced Metroland Newspapers had been placed into bankruptcy and its 70 weekly newspapers, including The Aurora Banner and The Newmarket Era, would go to a strictly digital format. \u201cThe difficult decision comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8JL","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 11:30:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}