95 years of publishing, ended by one bad afternoon
The Toronto Telegram
The Telegram ran as one of Toronto's major daily newspapers from 1876 until its abrupt 1971 closure, a collapse that directly produced its replacement, the Toronto Sun, the very next day.
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The Toronto Telegram published its first edition in 1876 and grew into one of the city's major daily newspapers over the following century, known for a populist, working-class readership and a more conservative editorial voice than its rival Globe and Mail. For much of the 20th century it competed directly with the Toronto Star for the city's afternoon newspaper readership, at a time when Toronto supported several competing dailies rather than the smaller number that survive today.
A sudden end, and an immediate successor
Declining afternoon-paper circulation and rising costs led the Telegram's owners to shut the paper down entirely on October 30, 1971, ending 95 years of continuous publication with comparatively little warning to staff or readers. A group of former Telegram employees moved almost immediately to fill the gap, launching the tabloid Toronto Sun the very next day, making the Telegram's closure and the Sun's birth two sides of the same 24-hour story in Toronto newspaper history.
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