Dear Colleagues:
As you know, print media is going through a period of upheaval in Canada and abroad. More than ever, we need to build on our strengths, of which we have many: we just have to make the most of them. This is why we need to continue to build and even accelerate the development of our own network — in the form of an in-house news agency, Quebecor Media Agency (QMI) — to provide and share content among all our media outlets across the land.
We will succeed in this initiative because Sun Media has a long history of co-operation amongst member newspapers, further heightened over the past three years as centralization and optimization of resources have become the watchwords of our business.
We are best positioned in the marketplace. The synergies among Quebecor Media’s media properties have made us the largest multimedia provider of news, entertainment, editorial and sports content in Canada, in print, online and on screen. This is a very important point, which we must always bear in mind in our work. Therefore, we will have to go to outside agencies for content and photos less and less. For those who are wondering, it is true that we have officially notified Canadian Press of our intention to depart the co-operative. Instead, we will continue to invest to build our own network, far superior to what the other groups have because it will be driven by our own employees. This is the best way for us to differentiate ourselves from the competition.
Now we need to take these efforts a step further and assist our Corporate Editorial team and our associates at the Quebecor Media Agency in ensuring that shareable content is skedded, and moved, in a timely fashion. Because we need to serve English as well as French markets, urban and community papers, broadcast and online and print, over four time zones, your co-operation and putting the chain first will go a long way toward ensuring the successful evolution of our company.
For our part, we will be developing more effective network tools to ease this process and make our work across the country more transparent and more easily shared.
We all need to understand that this is the only way to the future and to our success. It is of your responsibility to make sure this development will take place as efficiently and as seamlessly as possible.
I count on each and every one of you to make this happen, to ensure that we remain the leader in our industry.
Pierre Karl Péladeau
President and CEO
Sun Media Corporation