Community Newspapers Positioned to Prosper Online, Thomson Newspapers CEO Says.

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 1999--

Community newspapers that leverage their traditional strengths should do well online, says the chief executive officer of one of the country's leading community newspaper groups.

By integrating print with online and using existing classifieds and run-of-paper advertising to jump-start an online strategy, Stuart Garner, president and CEO of Thomson Newspapers, says that community newspapers have "the prospect of growth down the track." This, despite the fact that "for the last 18 months or so there has been no shortage of pundits forecasting that the Internet spells the death-knell for newspapers."

Garner attributes his optimistic outlook to the "intimate relationship between community newspapers and the communities they serve, plus the essentially local nature of much of their advertising."

In remarks delivered today at the Inland Press Foundation's group executives' conference at Chicago, Garner described a sensible Internet strategy as one that involves community newspapers becoming the core provider locally -- "the general contractor" -- of Internet information services. Under the scenario he envisions, the newspaper would provide more than content and advertising. It would include a transactional element that would enable its advertisers to do business with their customers online.

Predictions that most classified advertising will migrate online and thus fatally undermine the business model of local newspapers are seriously flawed, Garner says. Instead, community newspapers are well positioned to benefit in the emerging online environment. The Internet's weaknesses lie in the fact that it has no code of conduct or ethics, is uncontrolled, insecure and frequently unreliable. Newspapers, on the other hand, offer credibility, closeness to the community, good customer relationships, strong local brands and knowledge of their markets. "Basically what we are talking about here is expanding our existing strong local franchise and creating partnerships with our customer base," says Garner.

His own company is especially well positioned to prosper online thanks to its multi-product, regional marketing group approach to meeting customers' needs, Garner says. Thomson newspapers are grouped into strategic marketing groups, each of which serves local and regional markets through a portfolio of products and services. "Our plan is to make ourselves the first choice for our customers -- whatever the medium -- with an integrated approach and a first class set of online tools."

Thomson Newspapers is a marketing and communications company serving 21 regional and national markets in the United States and Canada. From newspapers to syndicated niche publications to new media, Thomson Newspapers meets its customers' needs through a broad spectrum of print and electronic products and services. The company publishes 55 daily newspapers and numerous non-daily newspapers, specialty and advertising publications.

Thomson Newspapers is one of the main operating units of The Thomson Corporation, which is one of the world's leading information companies with approximately 40,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues in excess of $6 billion U.S. TTC's common shares are traded on the Toronto, Montreal and London stock exchanges.