Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Goodbye to The Grid (and Eye Weekly)

I’m sad to learn that The Grid is ceasing operations.


A free alt-weekly competitor to NOW magazine here in Toronto, The Grid was published by Torstar Corp. (Star Media Group) and was the reincarnation of Eye Weekly. Launched three years ago with a complete rebrand and redesign, The Grid won numerous awards for journalism and design.

The Grid is no more. I’ll miss it.

By nature I am curmudgeonly; I generally dislike change and am stubbornly resistant to publication revamps.

But The Grid won me over with quality. It was a smart, brisk—and generally positive—take on what was happening in the city. I enjoyed reading every issue, and it’s unfortunate in this age of new media and declining ad revenues that their business model no longer supported continued publication.

Lively local journalism.

Best of luck to all the staff who have lost their jobs with this announcement. I wonder what happens to the online archives of past issues?

Further reading
Torstar's weekly magazine The Grid to cease publication - G&M
The Grid weekly magazine is closing - Toronto Star
Eye Weekly/The Grid, 1991–2014 - Torontoist
The Grid R.I.P. - Michael Barclay