Alta Newspaper Group Limited Partnership is a

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

-based publisher of

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

and

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. It owns three small daily newspapers and more than a dozen weeklies. Alta, also known as Alberta Newspaper Group and Southern Alberta Newspapers, is one of two Canadian newspaper companies run and partially owned by

David Radler F. David Radler (born 1942 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian executive active in finance and news media. Radler was once president of Ravelston Corporation, a privately owned corporation owned by Conrad Black and Radler to control their former ...

, a former business partner of

Conrad Black Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (born 25 August 1944), is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher, businessman, and writer. His father was businessman George Montegu Black II, who had significant holdings in Canadi ...

in Hollinger Inc. Hollinger Inc. Both Alta and

Continental Newspapers Continental Newspapers, formally known as Continental Newspapers Canada Ltd., is a Canadian daily newspaper publisher based in Kelowna, British Columbia. It publishes two British Columbia dailies and ''The Chronicle-Journal'' of Thunder Bay, Ontar ...

are descendants of Horizon Operations (Canada) Ltd., a company Radler founded at the end of the 1990s.

History

Most of the newspapers that currently make up Alta and Continental were purchased from

The Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to form ...

between 1999 and 2001 by Horizon, a family of companies owned by David Radler and Conrad Black, independently from Radler's and Black's roles as

COO COO or coo may refer to: Business * Certificate of origin, used in international trade * Chief operating officer or chief operations officer, high-ranking corporate official * Concept of operations, used in Systems Engineering Management Process ...

and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, respectively, of Hollinger Inc. During the 2000s, both men were convicted of defrauding Hollinger and served time in prison; Black sold his interest in Horizon in 2006; and Radler organized his Canadian holdings into two companies, including a limited partnership for his two Alberta dailies and associated weeklies. The chain, originally called Southern Alberta Newspapers and renamed Alta Group Newspapers, consisted of the former Thomson dailies '' Lethbridge Herald'' and ''

Medicine Hat News The ''Medicine Hat News'' is a daily newspaper published in Medicine Hat, Alberta. It features a city news section, a national news section, a world news section, a sports section, a comics section, and a classifieds section. The paper is owned b ...

'', and a group of weeklies covering suburban and rural communities in the

Lethbridge Lethbridge ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. With a population of 101,482 in its 2019 Alberta municipal censuses, 2019 municipal census, Lethbridge became the fourth Alberta city to surpass 100,000 people. The nearby Canadian ...

Medicine Hat Medicine Hat is a city in Southern Alberta, southeast Alberta, Canada. It is located along the South Saskatchewan River. It is approximately east of Lethbridge and southeast of Calgary. This city and the adjacent Town of Redcliff, Alberta, ...

area. The oldest of the weeklies was ''The Taber Times'', which dated to 1907 and had built the chain in the 1970s before being bought out by Hollinger and then Thomson. In the mid-2000s, Alta purchased three weeklies in southwestern Saskatchewan, and in 2006 it acquired '' The Record'' of

Sherbrooke, Quebec Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional count ...

, from

Glacier Media Glacier Media is a Canadian business information and media products company. It provides news, market information and sector-specific data within North America and internationally. Glacier is headquartered in Vancouver. Its primary operations a ...

, which took an ownership interest in Alta. Radler noted that ''The Record'' was a nostalgic purchase: it was the first newspaper that he and Black owned, back in 1969. The company has not made any major acquisitions since 2006, although it has bought out biweekly newspapers that competed with its dailies in Lethbridge and Sherbrooke.

Ownership

As a

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

, Alta Newspaper Group is not required to publish an annual report, and Radler has been "tight-lipped" about its ownership structure, telling reporters that he is "a shareholder" in the company but declining to specify how much he owns. Alta was formed, however, out of a subsidiary of Horizon Publications Inc., a company acknowledged to have been owned and operated primarily by Radler. In 2006, as part of the deal that added ''The Record'' to Alta's holdings, Vancouver-based publisher Glacier Media took a 50% share in Alta. It later increased its ownership share to 59%. Glacier is also part-owner of two other newspaper companies connected with Radler, Continental Newspapers and

RISN Operations RISN Operations Inc., also called Rhode Island Suburban Newspapers, is a privately owned publisher of three daily newspapers and several weekly newspapers in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The company was founded by Illinois-based newspaper exec ...

. Sam Grippo, Glacier's

chairman of the board The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

, was a group publisher at Hollinger during Radler's time as

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

Properties

Although the company is headquartered in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, none of its properties are located there. Alta publishes newspapers in

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

and Quebec. Its sister company

publishes dailies in British Columbia and

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Alberta

Two dailies and six weekly newspapers in the Lethbridge-Medicine Hat area were part of the original Southern Alberta Newspapers chain owned by Horizon Operations. The ''Lethbridge Journal'' was added in 2011. Together, the following papers cover the cities of

and

, the

Municipal District of Taber The Municipal District of Taber is a municipal district (MD) in southern Alberta, Canada. It is located in Census Division 2. Geography Communities and localities The following urban municipalities are surrounded by the MD of Taber. ; ...

Cypress County Cypress County is a municipal district in southeastern Alberta, Canada that surrounds the City of Medicine Hat and the Town of Redcliff. The municipality is part of Census Division 1, Alberta.http://www.albertafirst.com/profiles/statspack/20 ...

, the

County of Forty Mile No. 8 The County of Forty Mile No. 8 is a municipal district in south eastern Alberta, Canada. It is located in Census Division 1, southwest of Medicine Hat. Its municipal office is located in the Village of Foremost. Geography Communities and ...

and

Lethbridge County Lethbridge County is a municipal district in southern Alberta, Canada. It is in Census Division No. 2 and part of the Lethbridge census agglomeration. It was known as the ''County of Lethbridge'' prior to December 4, 2013. Its name was change ...

: * ''Bow Island Commentator'' (Tuesdays) * '' Lethbridge Herald'' (daily) * ''The Lethbridge Journal'' (free, biweekly) * ''

Lethbridge Sun Times ''Lethbridge Sun Times'' is a weekly paper in the Lethbridge, Alberta, area, with a circulation of 24,000 in 2007. The paper is part of Alta Newspaper Group, the same company that publishes and distributes the daily ''Lethbridge Herald''. History ...

'' (Wednesdays) * ''

'' (daily) * '' Prairie Post'' (Fridays) * ''The Sunny South News'' (Tuesdays) * ''The Taber Times'' (Wednesdays) * ''The Vauxhall Advance'' (Thursdays) * ''The Western Canadian Pipeline'' (magazine)

Saskatchewan

Alta publishes four weeklies in southwestern Saskatchewan; all but the ''Prairie Post'' were added in 2006: * ''Maple Creek News'' (Thursdays) * ''Maple Creek Times'' (Tuesdays) * ''The Shaunavon Standard'' (Tuesdays) * ''Prairie Post East'' (Fridays)

Quebec

Alta acquired the second-largest English-language newspaper in Quebec, and its associated weekly product, in 2006. It added a competing semimonthly paper in 2009: * ''Brome County News'' (weekly) * ''

The Record (Sherbrooke) ''The Record'' is the only daily (Monday–Friday) English language newspaper based in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. It serves the Eastern Townships region of that province. It is one of the French-speaking province's last two English-language daili ...

'' (daily) * ''The Townships Outlet'' (biweekly Tuesdays)

TriCube Media

Most of the websites associated with Alta and Continental properties are credited to TriCube Media, a division of Alta Newspaper Group based in

. TriCube Media bills itself as "a full service branding and business development company". In addition to the newspapers, its clients include governments, nonprofits, blogs and private businesses. Services it provides include web design, web hosting graphic design, online advertising and promotions.

References

{{Glacier Media Newspaper companies of Canada Companies based in Vancouver