About 24 Heures

24 Heures

24 Heures (styled 24) is the French-language free commuter newspaper of Montreal, Quebec — the free daily of the metro, the paper handed to hundreds of thousands of Montrealers on their way to work. Launched in the early 2000s as Métropolitain, renamed 24 heures in 2005, it is the only survivor of Quebecor's cross-Canada 24 Hours chain — the Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Gatineau editions all closed, leaving the Montreal French edition standing alone. Owned by Quebecor Media and relaunched in 2021 as a print weekly with a digital-first mission geared to younger readers, it remains Greater Montreal's free commuter paper. It publishes at 24heures.ca.

Overview

Montreal's metro — the STM's four lines, 68 stations, more than a million daily riders — is the city's circulatory system, and for two decades 24 Heures was its newspaper: the free tabloid in the racks at the station entrances, the quick read for the commute. 24 Heures is the commuter paper: short, punchy, local-first — the day's Montreal news, the Canadiens score, the weather, the entertainment — designed to be read in 20 minutes between stations.

The paper's distinction is its distribution and its audience: the exclusive free daily of the Montreal metro from 2011 (under a renewable STM agreement), reaching more than a million readers a week in Greater Montreal — young, urban, active, educated and multicultural. The free commuter paper is a distinct journalistic art: no subscriptions, no loyalty — every reader is won fresh each morning, in the 30 seconds between the turnstile and the platform. 24 Heures mastered it: the front page that stops the commuter, the headlines that can be absorbed standing up, the mix of hard news and pleasure that makes the ride shorter. Its racks at the station entrances were part of the metro's furniture — as familiar as the orange line's rumble. In 2021 it repositioned with a new editorial mission for younger readers: news and entertainment rubbing shoulders, with coverage of the climate crisis, politics, health, sexuality, education and ethical consumption. The repositioning was a recognition that the commuter paper's future is digital: the young Montrealer reads on the phone, not on paper — in the metro's Wi-Fi zones, on the bus, in the café. The new 24 Heures speaks their language: conversational, engaged, unafraid of pleasure, serious about the planet.

History

The Montreal edition began as Métropolitain in the early 2000s — Quebecor's answer to the free-commuter-paper wave — and became 24 heures in 2005, joining the national 24 Hours chain: French in Montreal and Gatineau, English in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. The chain's history is a story of contraction: the Gatineau edition was discontinued in 2008; Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa ceased in 2013; Toronto and Vancouver were sold to Postmedia, then acquired by Torstar in a 2017 asset swap and immediately shut down in favour of the Metro papers. The French-language Montreal edition survived them all — the only 24 still standing. Its survival is a testament to the Montreal market's distinctness: the francophone commuter audience, the metro's captive ridership, the Quebecor ecosystem's synergies — and a paper that understood its readers better than its siblings understood theirs.

Distribution was the paper's battleground: an exclusive deal with the Agence métropolitaine de transport in 2006 put it in the commuter trains; in December 2010 the STM awarded Quebecor the exclusive free-daily franchise for the Montreal metro, starting January 3, 2011 — taking it from Journal Métro; Métro regained the privilege in 2016. The franchise wars were the free-paper business in miniature: the racks, the hand-distributors, the station entrances — the physical infrastructure of the commute, fought over like territory. 24 Heures' years as the metro's exclusive paper were its peak: the brand synonymous with the ride, the paper every commuter knew. Employing over thirty journalists, desk managers and photographers, the paper built its identity on local-first coverage. On February 4, 2021, Quebecor unveiled a major repositioning: a new site, a new mission, new contributors — a media outlet "anchored in today's digital culture," with dialogue and commenting as constant features, and columnists including Rose-Aimée Automne T. Morin on sex and relationships, Philippe Néméh-Nombré on social issues and Léa Ilardo on climate solutions.

Content and Sections

The modern 24 Heures is built around the young Montrealer's day. Local news anchors the coverage — the city, the boroughs, the STM, the housing crisis, the construction — alongside Quebec and national news in quick-read form. The climate crisis, politics, health, sexuality, education, digital consumption and ethical consumption are signature subject areas of the repositioned brand.

Entertainment rubs shoulders with news: the festivals, the shows, the restaurants, the city's cultural life. Sports coverage centres on the Canadiens and the city's teams in commuter-friendly form. The columnists — on relationships, social issues and climate solutions — are the brand's voice: young, engaged, conversational. The print weekly edition is designed for the weekend read — the Saturday paper reimagined for the commuter generation; the website is a continuous digital operation, updated through the day.

Coverage and Audience

24 Heures serves Greater Montreal — a market of 4.3 million people — with a readership that skews young, urban and multicultural: the metro riders, the students, the young professionals. Quebecor reported the paper reaching 1,017,000 readers in Greater Montreal per week as of 2018 — a 4% increase on the previous survey — positioning it as the go-to for advertisers seeking urban millennials.

The paper's audience is the city's commuters: the students of the universities and cégeps, the downtown office workers, the service workers, the newcomers learning French — the Montreal that rides the metro, the city's most democratic cross-section. Its political coverage, geared to young readers, covers the issues that move them: climate, housing, transit, social justice — the politics of the generation that will inherit the city.

Ownership

24 Heures is owned by Quebecor Media, the media arm of Quebecor Inc. — the empire Pierre Péladeau founded in 1965, now led by his son Pierre Karl Péladeau. Within Quebecor, the paper shares content and platforms with Le Journal de Montréal, Le Journal de Québec and the TVA network, while maintaining its distinct commuter-paper identity.

Quebecor is one of Canada's largest media companies, vertically integrated across newspapers, television (TVA, LCN), telecommunications (Videotron, Freedom Mobile) and digital — a convergence empire in which 24 Heures' youth audience feeds the group's platforms.

Digital Presence

The paper's website, 24heures.ca, was redesigned in February 2021 as part of the repositioning: a digital-first operation built for young readers — breaking news, explainers, columnists, video, commenting and dialogue features, optimized for mobile. The site runs on Quebecor's shared digital infrastructure, with the video, commenting and dialogue features that define the repositioned brand.

On social media 24 Heures distributes its youth-geared journalism — the explainers, the columnists, the climate coverage — to a large Montreal following of young francophones. As of 2026, 24 Heures continues — print weekly, digital-first — the last survivor of the 24 Hours chain, still the free paper of the Montreal commute, still the 20-minute read between stations, still the metro's paper, still free, still 24, still the commute's companion.

The last 24 Hours standing: Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Gatineau — all gone, only Montreal's French edition remains. From the Métropolitain launch to the 2005 renaming, the 2011 exclusive STM metro franchise, the 2021 relaunch as the print weekly '24' with a digital-first mission for younger readers — Quebecor's commuter paper endures: the free read of the metro ride.