No more Globe and Mail for Newfoundland and Labrador

The Globe and Mail — the only national daily newspaper still coming into the province — announced on Tuesday that it would no longer be shipping copies of its daily newspaper to Newfoundland and Labrador due to the high cost of shipping.

Phillip Crawley, publisher and CEO of the Globe and Mail, said as of Oct. 1 customers will only be able to get the publication through its online services.

Crawley said the cost of sending the daily publication to the province was outweighed by the gains, with only 3,000 papers sold on average per day.

"The costs simply are quite outrageously high for the fact that we can provide the content of the Globe via various other digital delivery methods," Crawley said.

"So paying more than a million dollars a year for the relatively small number of papers that actually get shipped to Newfoundland and Labrador really doesn't make any economic sense."

According to Crawley, there have been just shy of 100 days so far in 2013 that the paper hasn't made it on time.

"We were losing money. We have to fly the papers from Halifax and it's often interrupted by weather and transport delays; so far this year there are 99 days when we've been either late or we haven't been able to deliver at all to St. John's or to other parts of the province," he said.

"The cost of getting to Newfoundland and then on to Labrador, they are the highest costs in the country because the transportation is the most expensive because it's basically relying on air all the way."

Crawley said the publication has made itself a multi-platform publication and will continue to be a national news provider for the entire country, but acknowledges that there will still be customers disappointed with the decision.

"It's not a decision we've taken lightly, but as the industry changes and evolves, the popularity of reading on-screen — particularly since iPads and tablets came along — that's changed our business quite a lot," he said.

"A lot of people are finding it a pleasurable experience to read on an iPad or another tablet."

The publication will also stop sending newspapers to some parts of British Columbia, such as Whistler, Prince Rupert, Prince George, 100 Mile House, Logan Lake, Sun Peaks, Houston, Blind Bay, Revelstoke, and surrounding areas.

Crawley said the same content will be available to everyone on the company's Globe Unlimited or Globe2Go services.