Thursday 10 January 2008

Underdog spirit?

When the going gets tough . . .

Here's hoping the results of last week's TSF poll do not reflect the Sunday Sun staff's mood as they launch a campaign to regain the No. 1 spot in Sunday sales in Toronto.

When asked "Can Sunday Sun be No. 1 again?", 75% of the TSF readers who voted said "No."

Only 25% said the Sunday Sun, which was No. 1 more than a decade ago, will be successful in picking up roughly 60,000 new buyers to top the Toronto Star.

From Day One in '71, the Toronto Sun thrived as the underdog. The Sunday Sun was no longer the underdog when sales peaked at 550,000 in October of 1992.

But along came Doug Creighton's ouster in 1992 and Quebecor and the chainsaws in 1999.

With the most recent ABC circulation stats pegging Sunday sales at 347,000, it is again the underdog in desperate need of a makeover.

That task has been placed in the hands of James Wallace, the Sun's new deputy editor.

Adding 60,000 readers to top the Sunday Star is not an impossible goal, but it will require an innovative tabloid frame of mind to get the job done.

Are the 75% of the TSF poll voters astute observers or off base?

The next 12 months should tell the story.

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