Continental Newspapers, formally known as Continental Newspapers Canada Ltd., is a Canadian

daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

publisher based in

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ''ki� ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. It publishes two British Columbia dailies and ''

The Chronicle-Journal ''The Chronicle-Journal'' is the daily newspaper in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Unlike many List of newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspapers, it does not use the city's name in its masthead. The paper has an average weekday circulation of 17,20 ...

'' of

Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. Continental is one of two Canadian newspaper companies run and partially owned by

David Radler F. David Radler (born 1942 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian executive active in finance and news media. Radler was once president of Ravelston Corporation, a privately owned corporation owned by Conrad Black and Radler to control their former ...

, a former business partner of Conrad Black who was convicted of defrauding their company, Hollinger Inc. Both Continental and

Alta Newspaper Group Alta Newspaper Group Limited Partnership is a Vancouver-based publisher of newspapers in Western Canada and Quebec. It owns three small daily newspapers and more than a dozen weeklies. Alta, also known as Alberta Newspaper Group and Southern Al ...

are descendants of Horizon Operations (Canada) Ltd., a company Radler founded at the end of the 1990s.

History

The newspapers that currently make up Continental were purchased from

The Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to form ...

between 1999 and 2001 by Horizon, a family of companies owned by David Radler and Conrad Black, independently from Radler's and Black's roles as

COO COO or coo may refer to: Business * Certificate of origin, used in international trade * Chief operating officer or chief operations officer, high-ranking corporate official * Concept of operations, used in Systems Engineering Management Process ...

and CEO, respectively, of Hollinger Inc. During the 2000s, both men were convicted of defrauding Hollinger and served time in prison; Black sold his interest in Horizon in 2006. Radler organized his Canadian holdings into two companies, grouping the '' Lethbridge Herald'', ''

Medicine Hat News The ''Medicine Hat News'' is a daily newspaper published in Medicine Hat, Alberta. It features a city news section, a national news section, a world news section, a sports section, a comics section, and a classifieds section. The paper is owned ...

'' and several Alberta and Saskatchewan weeklies into Alta, a limited partnership, while leaving the

Okanagan Valley The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is p ...

and Thunder Bay papers in Horizon Operations, which was later renamed Continental Newspapers Canada. Continental has not made any major acquisitions since then. As a

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

, Continental is not required to publish an annual report, but is said to be "owned mostly by David Radler". The company's predecessor, Horizon Operations, was acknowledged to have been owned and operated primarily by Radler. In 2006, after taking a 50% (later 59%) ownership interest in Alta Newspaper Group,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

-based publisher Glacier Media purchased a 25% share in Continental for $16.2 million. It later increased its ownership share to 27.6%, for an additional $1.1 million. Glacier is also part-owner of two other newspaper companies connected with Radler, Alta and

RISN Operations RISN Operations Inc., also called Rhode Island Suburban Newspapers, is a privately owned publisher of three daily newspapers and several weekly newspapers in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The company was founded by Illinois-based newspaper exec ...

. Sam Grippo, Glacier's chairman of the board, was a group publisher at Hollinger during Radler's time as COO.

Properties

Continental Newspapers Canada Ltd. publishes three daily newspapers and one combined weekend newspaper: * ''

'' of

* '' The Daily Courier'' of

* '' Penticton Herald'' of

Penticton Penticton ( ) is a city in the Okanagan Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, situated between Okanagan and Skaha lakes. In the 2016 Canadian Census, its population was 33,761, while its census agglomeration The ce ...

* ''The Okanagan Saturday'' the weekend edition of the Kelowna and Penticton papers

References

{{Glacier Media Newspaper companies of Canada Companies based in Kelowna