Real estate newspapers — newspapers that contain advertisements of properties for sale as their main content, first began to flourish in the 1970s. They really came into their own during the 1980s.
The reason real estate newspapers began publishing, was to provide an alternative medium to the high cost of advertising demanded by main-stream newspapers. The greatest challenge these papers had was to create a good distribution system. And as things turned out, the key factor in successful distribution of these newspapers was to make them available at street corner boxes. They were able to do this because, as luck would have it, corner newspaper boxes had already been created as a presence.
During the 1970s and 1980s in Toronto and many other Canadian cities, daily newspapers established the idea of making newspapers available from vendor boxes at intersections and other street locations. Real estate newspapers benefited tremendously from a distribution method that was already in place.
I would like to give credit to the pioneer who first established newspaper boxes in Toronto as a significant distribution method. When you think about it, this person really was the one who provided real estate newspaper publishers with their main distribution venue.
Jack Maycock was a district circulation manager for the Toronto Star in the 1950s. He was not the first person to place a corner newspaper box out on the streets of Toronto. There were a few Globe boxes out as far back as the 1930s, and possibly even before in the time of the Mail and Empire. There weren’t that many of them around, but those that were represented a minor effort to augment home delivery sales for the Globe, which was lagging behind Toronto’s other daily newspapers.
Jack Maycock was the one who developed and pioneered the operation that made newspaper boxes a major venue in the fiercely competitive field of newspaper circulation. He kick-started the battle of newspaper box sales in the circulation war that was raging between the Toronto Star and the Toronto Telegram throughout the 1950s and 60s.
In those days, newspapers were for sale by vendor attendants at major intersections, as well as convenience stores.
One day, around 1960, Jack decided to put out a couple of Toronto Star newspaper boxes without an attendant to sell them. People could freely pick up a newspaper, but they were expected to pay the price into an accompanying coin box on their honour. There was no coin mechanism. And so,
if you’ll forgive the pun, these boxes were coined with the name, “honour boxes”.
From the outset of this initiative, Jack did not want to intrude on the sale of newspapers by vendors at major intersections, so he chose street corners that were far enough away from these locations but still had potential to catch the eye of potential readers.
The first ever Toronto Star honour boxes were placed by Jack on Bathurst Street at the corners of Dewbourne Avenue and Ardmore Road. They quickly showed some success in newspaper sales and soon after, Jack put out additional boxes on Spadina Road in an area known as Forest Hill
Village. These boxes also showed successful sales.
From there things really took off. Jack joined forces with another district manager to the south of this area and Toronto Star honour boxes began showing their colours at many street corners in the heart of the city. All this activity soon caught the eye of the Star’s fierce rival, the Telegram.
In short order, Star boxes were soon accompanied by Tely boxes almost everywhere they were placed.
In 1971, when the Toronto Telegram folded, a brand new newspaper started up the next day. They simply took over the boxes left on the street by the old Tely and stuck a giant round decal over the Telegram name, displaying the logo of the new paper, The Toronto Sun. A lot of people talked about what a cheeky newspaper this new tabloid was. It was so cheeky that it didn’t bother with any home delivery effort at all. It sold most of its papers through the newspaper boxes on the street — a sales network that began with the tenacity of one of the Toronto Star’s most tenacious newspaper sales managers, Jack Maycock.
I think the Toronto Sun and all the newspapers published by the umbrella group they belong to owe Jack a vote of thanks for creating their main newspaper sales network. I also think that real estate newspapers owe a vote of thanks to Jack for providing them with an important venue that helped make their papers a success.
Jack is retired today and lives just outside Lindsay, Ont. He was once foolish enough to hire me to work for him at the Star in 1968. He has been my friend and mentor ever since.
I have always believed that he should receive credit for the innovations he provided to the newspaper business. If the big daily papers can't do it, then by golly those of us in the real estate industry will.
Thanks Jack.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email heino@remonline.com.
