For most Canadian newspapers, 2001 was a year publishers would rather forget.

Total ROP lineage dived almost 7% to 1.175 billion advertising lines - a level not seen since 1996 - and it was no gradual loss. It hit newspapers across the country like a Mack truck, with lineage suddenly plummeting in September to a level 10% lower than the year before, according to the Canadian Newspaper Association.

But in fourth quarter 2001, the Winnipeg Sun enjoyed an ad sales revenue increase of more than 16% over Q4 2000, and that was just one glowing quarter among many since Quebecor's Sun Media took control of the paper three years ago.

So what makes the Sun so special?

A close look at the changes brought into play by publisher and CEO Gordon Norrie since taking the helm in the spring of 1999 show that the answer lies in three separate initiatives: First, a complete refreshing of the editorial content to bring it in line with the other Sun Media papers; second, an increased focus on customer service, marketing and cross-promotions; and third, a move away from subscriber to single-copy sales.

Norrie says that before Sun Media took over, the Winnipeg Sun "had been floundering for 17 years" as a "staid and conservative" clone of its main competitor, the Winnipeg Free Press. When Norrie parachuted in from the Calgary Sun, he brought with him the notorious red logo and attitude of a Sun Media tabloid.

"We turned it into a typical Sun," he says. "Made it bright and bold and colourful, delivering the news in a succinct and sometimes controversial way. It's light and informative and a big departure from anything that was available before in Winnipeg."

As you might expect, this caused an equally dramatic change in readership. "We lost a ton of 50, 55-plus readers," says Norrie, "but that didn't cause us a great deal of concern because we picked up that many and more 18- to 49-year-olds, which is our target market."

Norrie says that because the Sun brand was fairly well known in Winnipeg before the relaunch, people took to it much like they would to a town's first McDonald's or Tim Hortons: they already knew what to expect. So the paper had a built-in recognition advantage, on top of the pent-up longing for new fare that wasn't being served by the existing players.

But Norrie did more than just implement Sun Media's editorial formula, he also brought in a whole new approach to client service and promotion.

First of all, he drastically lowered the ad rates. "The Winnipeg Free Press pretty much had the market to themselves for a long time, and they were priced accordingly," he says. "When we came into this town, auto dealers were paying five, six, seven or even eight thousand dollars for a full page. Today they can buy a full page for somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2,500 to $3,000."

This had two effects: First of all, it opened up the market to smaller businesses that couldn't afford newspaper before. Secondly, existing advertisers found that they could now advertise in both Winnipeg papers for less than they used to pay for one - so they did.