Canada looks forward to a nationwide financial paper next year

Canada is about to get its first daily financial newspaper. The Financial Post, until now just a weekly, will publish a daily edition starting early next year. Canada is one of the few major industrial countries without a business paper every day. Along with the news of daily publication, the owners of the Financial Post have announced a number of ownership changes. The Post will be sold to the Toronto Sun Publishing Corporation, to add another paper to the Maclean Hunter stable.

The Sun publishes mass-market tabloids in Toronto and in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. It has already been using its press capacity to publish the weekly Financial Post at its Toronto plant and will now print the daily there as well.

There is perhaps some irony in the lightweight Sun's publishing the Financial Post, a paper that takes itself seriously. Like the Sun, but unlike the broadsheet weekly, the new daily Financial Post will be in a tabloid format.

``It will be Canada's first daily paper devoted completely to business,'' said Financial Post publisher Neville Nankivell in a front-page story on the new paper. ``It will be classy, upscale, authoritative, and we also want it to be different from anything in the Canadian marketplace today.''

What it will be up against will be the Toronto Globe and Mail, with its Report on Business section. The ROB, as it is known, is the daily paper of record for business in Canada. It is not, however, a separate newspaper; the Report on Business is included with the regular paper in both its local Toronto edition and its national edition sent by satellite to the major cities of the country.

The Globe considers its financial section a daily financial newspaper, but because it is part of the entire edition, the Financial Post can claim it is alone.

``The Globe is competition on two fronts, editorial and advertising,'' said Mr. Nankivell in an interview. He added that the paper will be enlarging its editorial staff of about 50 to put out the daily.

Media analysts say the market for business news in Canada is far from saturated and predict the new financial daily will do well, probably at the expense of the Globe's business section. The parent paper, though, has been losing some advertising share, and launching a daily is one way to get it back.

The Financial Post will continue to publish its 80-year-old weekly edition. Included in the sale to the Toronto Sun were also Moneywise Magazine, a monthly glossy; Investor's Digest; Financial Post Conferences, a group that holds conferences on newsworthy subjects; and Financial Post Information Service, which provides data widely used by the financial community.

The appearance of a financial daily will enhance Toronto's reputation as a town where newspapers still battle for readers. It will be the fourth daily, after the Sun, the Globe, and the Star.