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 This item appeared in the April, 2009 edition of The Publisher.

With ad sales dropping, print costs rising and Canadians becoming increasingly dependent on computers, it’s no surprise that some economists have already drafted their obituaries for the Canadian newspaper industry.

However, to steal from Mark Twain, the reports of our death may be greatly exaggerated. Most newspapers in the ethnic press have bucked trends and are actually expanding, suggesting that, far from disappearing, newspaper readers are simply taking on a new profile. Some of the fastest-growing ethnic communities in Canada—be they South Asian, Chinese, Hispanic or European—still prefer to get a little ink on their fingers while reading the news.
Advertisers have started to clue in.

"More and more, corporate Canada is reaching to these communities," says Lori Abittan of Multimedia Nova Corporation in Toronto, which produces newspapers for the Italian, Hispanic and Portuguese communities. "Our readers use many products that don’t necessarily reflect their culture. They are very cosmopolitan consumers."

Abittan says major advertisers are extremely eager to tap into this consumer base. To help them do so effectively, her company not only helps translate ads from English, but also works with advertisers to "culturalize" the ads appropriately. 

"A message that resonates in one community will not necessarily resonate in another. Simply translating ads can result in communication nightmares. Our ads receive a great deal of scrutiny and we work closely with advertisers in order to relate their objectives and goals to our readership," something she says all community newspapers must learn to do while the industry adjusts.
Interestingly, Abittan rejects the term ‘ethnic’ for her non-English publications. Instead, she calls them "media for the new mainstream, printed in the language of comfort."

This characterization reflects the changing reality of what constitutes the mainstream in Canada. According to the 2006 census, 11 of Canada’s ethnic groups passed the one million mark in 2006.

"Many of our readers feel no connection in mainstream media," Abittan says. "The relevance of our publications is that they connect people in a personal way."

As an example, she says her company’s Italian paper Correo Canadiense offers far more soccer coverage than other newspapers because soccer is hugely important to the Italian community.

Abittan also sees multicultural papers as tools of integration. "They help our readers contribute to the Canadian fabric. Culture defines who we are, but it’s not what unites us."

In 2007, in order to serve the growing South Asian community in Brampton, Ont., the Brampton Guardian established the South Asian Focus newspaper in 2007. The newspaper has been a major success. With a current circulation of 25,000, the Focus is looking to expand, "but we’re looking at it in terms of baby steps," says editor Sunil Rao.

"By and large we cover happenings that are of more interest to the South Asian market," he says. "Things like the desecration of the Indian flag during Republican Day celebrations, and of course we’re big on cricket, which you don’t hear much about in the mainstream media. Cricket is a highly unifying factor right across South Asia."

Rao says the Focus has given the company additional revenue during challenging times. "It’s a publication where South Asian entrepreneurs can sell products and services," he adds.

In establishing the Focus, the Brampton Guardian followed in the steps of its parent company, Torstar, which in 1998 formed a partnership with Hong Kong’s Sing Tao News Corporation to print Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver editions of the 30-year-old Sing Tao Daily. The paper is published in Chinese languages and operates less as a specialty niche publication than a full-scale non-English daily. “Other than the major breaking news locally, federally and internationally, we place high emphasis on local and Canadian news items that present an angle uniquely related to the Chinese community," says spokesperson Peter Li.

While the majority of Sing Tao readers read and write English, over 90 per cent say they prefer to read the news and advertising in Chinese, Li says. "Ads can be printed in Chinese, English or bilingual. It is the advertisers' choice." Once again, the newspaper does the work to help advertisers connect to the audience.

George Bakoyannis, publisher of the bi-weekly Greek Canadian News of Montreal says his publication is doing very well, too. "All of our copies are picked up within a few days of publication," he says.

Although advertising has slowed a bit, Bakoyannis doesn't blame the economy. "We've never relied on the big corporate advertisers like Ford, Chrysler or GM," he says. "Other papers had those ads and are now feeling the effects of the downsizing."

Having content and advertising that is "super local" has helped his paper weather the economic storms, he says. "With an ethnic paper we have to do stories for the local Greek community. It’s not so much about what’s happening at city hall as what’s happening at the community centres and with the Greek organizations, as well as what’s happening in the old country."

Despite the current success of the News, though, Bakoyannis holds out little hope for his paper in the longterm. "This is basically a sunset industry," he says. "In 20 to 25 years our readership will have declined to next to nothing. The people who are making us viable are first-generation Greeks, but who's going to read it in 30 years? My own children aren’t comfortable reading a Greek paper."

Like Bakoyannis, William Aykler is more concerned about declining readership than slumping ad sales. As publisher of Toronto’s Hungarian-language Kanadai-Amerikai Magyarsag, he’s watched the Hungarian community in Toronto shrink steadily over the past few decades, leaving him with a sense of doom about the publication’s future.

"The supply of Hungarians is whittling away," says Aykler. "The younger generation is on the Internet and reading English publications and the older generation is dying off."

Kanadai-Amerikai Magyarsag has been around for 58 years, making it one of the oldest ethnic newspapers in Canada. Aykler decided recently to split the paper's content between Hungarian and English in an effort to grab more readers from the fringe of the Hungarian community.

"There’s no longer the same need for advertisers to use our paper to contact the community," he says. "It’s not like India or Pakistan where immigration numbers are still strong."

Adman Hashmi, publisher of the Urdu-language Sunday Times, says his readers wish to see their culture and country of origin reflected in their newspaper. After serving the same communities for over 100 years, Hashmi says, newspapers must realize that "all communities, ethnic or otherwise, are changing. If the community doesn’t find news of interest in the newspaper, it doesn’t feel that publication is for them."

Like Abittan's papers, the Times is rapidly picking up new advertisers as well as new readers in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. "We have learned to breathe with the community," he says. "We know what our readership wants and we structure the paper for them.

"The new generation wants to be involved with the Canadian culture, but they also want to stay in touch with things back home and with their own language.  I think there’s a bright future for ethnic publications."

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