The Gazette

The Gazette is one of the oldest newspapers on the North American continent. Founded by Fleury Mesplet in 1778, it began as a French-language paper, became bilingual in the late 1700s and ultimately changed to an English-language newspaper in 1822.

In 1968, The Gazette joined the Southam chain in 1996, The Gazette, passed in to the hands of Hollinger when it gained control of the Southam group of newspapers. Canwest Global bought The Gazette and other Southam papers from Hollinger in 2000.

Today, the Gazette is the dominant medium for reaching Montreal's large English market. The high fragmentation and duplication of radio, TV, magazines and weekly newspapers makes The Gazette, with its large, loyal readership, the most desirable choice for advertisers. Throughout the week, almost 70% of Montreal's English population reads The Gazette.

The Gazette offers award-winning editorial content with a variety of sections and features that readers have come to depend on, and look forward to, every day of the week. The Gazette's weekly TVtimes, Special Sections throughout the year, and weekly West Island community edition are of prime interest to both readers and advertisers. The Gazette is very active on the web with three popular websites: montrealgazette.com, westislandgazette.com a hyperlocal website using content generated by the citizens of the West Island and finally habsinsideout.com a website specialized on the Montreal Canadiens.

The Gazette also offers market research, creative services, targeted insert distribution and New Media applications, including this Web Site.

Highlights and Successes:

The Gazette has won more than 50 awards with its Marketing Words Matter campaign. From the best Marketing in Quebec to the International Newspaper Marketing Association Best in Show, the brand and image campaign has become a worldwide reference for newspaper branding.

Veteran Montreal Gazette hockey writer Red Fisher won a 2008 National Newspaper Award (NNA) in the Sports category for his critical feature on former Canadiens great goaltender Patrick Roy who had his number retired by the Canadiens. Mr. Fisher previously won NNAs for sportswriting in 1971 and 1991. The NNAs are considered Canada's top journalism prize.