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City of Calgary looks to scrap public notice ads in newspapers

City officials are pitching city council on dropping local newspapers for some types of advertising in order to reach more people through other methods.

Official says newspapers no longer reach large enough audience for city's needs

Scott Dippel · CBC News ·
The City of Calgary is looking to drop local newspapers for public notices, due to declining readership.

City officials are pitching Calgary's city council on dropping local newspapers for some types of advertising.

The city is looking for more flexibility to notify citizens about development permit applications and appeal hearings.

Council's planning and urban development committee heard that newspapers are no longer hitting the mark for the city for its public notices.

'Fractured' media environment

Amie Blanchette with the city's planning and development department said they want to focus on ways to get information directly to citizens.

"With declining readership numbers, print newspapers are not reaching the same number of Calgarians as they have in the past," said Blanchette.  

"With a more fractured print and online media environment, there is a declining return on investment for the city in using one newspaper to reach a diverse population."

As well, she cited deadlines and cut-off dates for posting ads in newspapers that can unnecessarily delay some development applications.

Other ways to notify people

The plan is to boost the city's direct mail/email efforts to property owners who could be affected by an application or an appeal, put more information on the city's website and create e-newsletters.

Coun. Jeff Davison told the committee he's on board with the ideas.

"It's a place that is about the least effective advertising these days in my opinion, so from my particular opinion, I would love to encourage more direct from source information," said Davison.

Although the committee voted in favour of the change, Coun. Joe Magliocca said he'd rather keep the newspaper ads to ensure that the city reaches a wide range of Calgarians, including older people and those who do not have internet access.

"Just that one person that we can't reach out to, we've failed. We've got to make sure we reach out to 100 per cent of the people who are in fact in the area," said Magliocca. 

"They've got a vast interest in it. They've got a property in the area. They should be knowing what's going on in the area."

Potential savings … or not?

Administration estimates that it bought about $274,000 in weekly development permit application ads in local papers in 2017.

It also spent about $50,000 that year on hearing notices for matters before the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board. 

What isn't clear is just how much money cutting the ads could actually save the city.

Blanchette told the committee there would be some additional costs in bumping up its communications through other means like direct mail-outs.

"There may be an opportunity for a cost-savings here and so we'll be looking at that over the course of the next year." 

CBC Calgary reached out to Postmedia, which owns the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun, for comment but the company declined. 

Council will discuss the plan at an upcoming meeting.

If it approves the proposal, newspaper ads would cease by the end of March 2019.

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