Metro's digital city-specific ventures being shut down as Torstar retrenches

Torstar's Star Media Group has discontinued all of its digital-only city editions of Metro, the free newspaper, cut 9 jobs and moved all of Metro's operations into Torstar's Toronto headquarters, according to a Canadian Press story. 

The cities in which digital editions had offered some local content each day, along with the national  included Victoria, Saskatoon, Regina, London, Windsor, Hamilton and Kitchener. The company curtly said that the decision was "based on results to date", meaning that the experiment in building audience and some local advertising revenue has been a disappointment. 

Star Media had shut down print versions of the freepaper in Regina, Saskatoon and London last July. It says it will continue to publish news stories online in the seven cities where it still distributes print editions: Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.