Free daily tonight is acquired by Annex Business Media and converts to weekly

Annex Business Media has acquired the freepaper tonight and will be publishing it as a weekly, rather than as a weeknight daily. According to a story in Marketing magazine, the three-and-a-half year old paper will continue to distribute 102,000 copies in the core of Toronto, only now on Thursdays.The sale price was not revealed (both companies are privately held.)

"Publisher John Cameron said the decrease in print days will allow tonight to focus on its web content and eventually roll out more mobile apps. 'Basically it comes down to where you want to put your resources,' said Cameron. 'We know that things will transition more and more over to digital. Every paper will try and spin it a different way, but we all know people are getting news on their apps and on the web.'

"Cameron noted that tonight‘s web traffic has roughly doubled since The Globe and Mail implemented a paywall last October, a boost that contributed to the decision to cut frequency. 'People are looking for other places to go on the web now,' he said. 'That showed us an opportunity.' ”

Cameron said that readers won't notice a change in the freshness of news, which will continue to be delivered every day online; content arrangements that tonight has with partners such as Sportsnet will continue.

Annex, based in Simcoe, is primarily a printer and  business-to-business publisher with a hefty stable of 35 mostly small circulation specialty magazines in the manufacturing/industrial, resources/heavy equipment, agriculture, retail business, professional and commercial services.