Canadian alternatives like Eye Weekly adjust their attitudes to remain in print

Back in the early 21st century, alternative newspapers were a fixture in the doorway of what seemed like every coffee shop and book, video and record store in downtown Canada.

Now, the number of media-related retailers has shrunk and nearly everyone sitting in public is transfixed by a screen with access to every website in the world.

The transition has forced a change at publications, in both Montreal and Toronto, launched in the early-1990s to take a bite out of a growing market for scrappy urban journalism focused on arts and entertainment.

Eye Weekly, which was created by the parent company of the Toronto Star in 1991 to compete with independent alt-weekly NOW, published its final issue this week. A replacement magazine, The Grid, will emphasize topics with broader appeal to readers in the increasingly gentrified downtown: food, fashion and furniture.

The most newsworthy thing about the transition, for now, was a decision to eliminate the adult classifieds that had been a lucrative revenue source. Torstar management decided that sex trade advertising didn't mesh with the new incarnation, which has also promised would-be advertisers "no tasteless, family unfriendly content."

Market forces also steered the decision of Communications Voir in Montreal to change the format of the English magazine it launched in 1993.

Hour, which competed with the Quebecor-owned Montreal Mirror for the readership of young anglos, had shrunk in size as advertising diminished. The weekly relaunched last month as Hour Community, which has emphasized sincerity over snark, an approach partly designed to reach a broader audience through door-to-door distribution.

The more mainstream style has a relatively successful precedent: Swerve, a supplement created by the Calgary Herald in 2004, appropriated alternative weekly irreverence for an approach that was less likely to offend subscribers.

So, those with the deepest roots in radical journalism have turned out to be the longest survivors.

The Georgia Straight, launched in Vancouver in 1967, has attempted to retain readership by appealing to multiple generations. Rock 'n' roll trends have changed, but alt-weekly politics have generally remained the same and its formula has continued to balance both.

And while NOW can boast of having knocked out a 20-year Toronto rival, after it asserted left-wing attitude with a cover photo of Mayor Rob Ford without any clothes, the magazine clearly hasn't rejected too many advertisers for being materialistic.