Print media in Canada’s French-speaking ‘capital’ of Montreal is suffering the demise for which it has been preparing for almost a decade.

The last print edition of the 127-year-old Le Soleil newspaper appeared last week, after almost four years as a Saturday-only edition.

In that it’s following others in Quebec including La Presse, which started “softening up” readers with a standout app, almost a decade ago, and ceased print publication in 2016.

For Le Soleil editor Marc Gendron, the decision – a long time coming as readers opt for digital subscriptions – is “only a chapter that is closing” and he is upbeat about the “exciting” future.

The paper – which became a co-operative in 2019 – moved to Saturday-only print in March 2020, in response to a drop in revenue. Le Soleil is reported to have been the first Canadian newspaper to print a photograph (1899) and the first French-language newspaper there to launch a website (1996).

The latest move comes after changes in its support structure dealt a death blow to commuter paper Métro in Quebec, with its 17 editions. Métro shut last August after supporting institutions including Desjardins Culture, the economy and innovation ministry, and Investissement Québec were reported to have pulled out their funding.

A problem had already occurred blocking the use of plastic “publi-sacs”, which had been a source of revenue as well as a means of distribution.

Ahead of that, the city of Montreal gave local printed newspapers a one-off contribution of CAD$85,000 (A$94,550) apiece – CAD$2 million (A$2.2 million) across 25 newspapers – to prepare for a bylaw seen as effectively banning unsolicited bags of flyers.

Among other problems cited with the Quebec market are Meta’s blocking of news shared on Canadian social media platforms.

The La Presse tablet app was seen as groundbreaking when it appeared at the start of 2016, ahead of a move to cut weekday and then all print editions. A speaker from the Montreal publisher was a highlight of that year’s NewsMediaWorks conference in Sydney, reporting the initial success from 265,000 app downloads… and helping prepare the Australian industry for similar cuts.

Interestingly then, it was Fairfax that was making it clear that such cuts were a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’, while News newspapers were taking an opposing line following a visit from global chief executive Robert Thomson.

Peter Coleman