| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner | Quebecor |
| Founded | 1980 |
| Political alignment | Conservative |
| Headquarters | Calgary, Alberta |
| Official website | www.calgarysun.com |
The Calgary Sun is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a division of Sun Media, a Quebecor company.
First published in 1980, the tabloid-format daily replaced the long-running broadsheet newspaper, The Albertan soon after it was acquired by the publishers of the Toronto Sun.
The newspaper, like most of those in the Canadian Sun chain, are known for short, snappy news stories aimed primarily at working class readers. The Sun's layout is based somewhat upon that of British tabloids.
Contents |
Page Six has traditionally been a "gossip" or light-hearted current events/opinion page focusing on local events. Currently, the Calgary Page Six is written by Kelly Doody, a former Canadian National team swimmer.
A signature feature of the Calgary Sun -- as it is with the other Sun-branded newspapers in the chain -- is a daily glamour photograph of a female model entitled the "Sunshine Girl". The feature utilizes locally photographed models (both amateur and professional) as well as photographs shot for the national chain. Originally situated on Page 3 (like the UK tabloids the Sun chain originally set out to emulate, which also featured glamour photos on their third pages), in the 1990s the feature was relocated to the Sports section. A "Sunshine Boy" feature appeared sporadically in the 1980s and '90s.
For many years, the Calgary Sun also published a popular local weekly, The Calgary Mirror, which covered community news; the Sun organization purchased the newspaper in the early 1990s. This publication, which originated in the 1950s and was also known at one time as North Hill News, was discontinued in 2001. It was succeeded by FYI Calgary In-Print, a free weekly newspaper intended to be a print equivalent of the Sun's much-publicized FYI Calgary news website (there was also an FYI Toronto newspaper published to tie-in with the Toronto Sun's website). The new publication failed to click with readers and advertisers and was discontinued in May 2001 during a downsizing of Sun Media; the website abandoned the FYI concept about a year later and rebranded itself as Calgarysun.com.
On Oct. 2, 2006, the Sun underwent a major redesign, introducing a new logo (actually it finally adopted the logo used at several other Sun newspapers for several years previously), and revamping its typeface usage for both bodytext and headlines. In February 2007, Sun Media launched a Calgary edition of its free daily 24 Hours, which shares editors and editorial staff with the Calgary Sun.
The Calgary Sun is one of four daily newspapers currently serving the Calgary area. The second is the Calgary Herald. The third and fourth are "Metro News" and "24hrs". Distribution is done by subscription, direct sale (such as at newsstands), or by newspaper box. The latter was the target of public debate by City Council in early 2008 when at least one alderman claimed that the newspaper boxes were responsible for increased states of litter on public transit.