About Calgary Sun

Calgary Sun

The Calgary Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, and the city's populist counterweight to the broadsheet Calgary Herald. Launched in 1980 when Sun Media acquired and relaunched the long-running Albertan in the image of the Toronto Sun, it is part of the Sun chain of tabloids known for punchy headlines, short punchy stories, heavy sports coverage and a conservative editorial voice aimed squarely at working-class readers. Owned by Postmedia Network since 2015, the Sun publishes in tabloid format with a daily print edition and a continuously updated digital news site at calgarysun.com, and its lineage traces back through more than a century of Calgary newspaper titles to an 1886 weekly called the Calgary Tribune.

Overview

The Calgary Sun occupies a distinctive place in Canadian journalism as the western anchor of the Sun tabloid chain — a family of papers that began with the Toronto Sun in 1971 and grew to include the Edmonton Sun, Ottawa Sun, Winnipeg Sun and others. Where the Calgary Herald speaks to the city's boardrooms and policy circles, the Sun speaks to its lunch counters, job sites and sports bars: brief, direct news writing, big photographs, extensive coverage of the Calgary Flames, Stampeders and local sports, and opinion columns that wear their populist conservatism openly. Its layout draws partly on the design traditions of British tabloids, with bold front-page splashes and a visual energy that sets it apart from the sober broadsheets.

The paper's signature features are familiar to generations of Calgary readers: the daily Sunshine Girl, city-focused crime and courts coverage, consumer advocacy, and sports pages that treat the Flames as a civic institution. It is published daily in tabloid format with digital editions, and like its sister Suns it maintains a lively online presence built around breaking news, opinion and sports.

History

The Calgary Sun's corporate history begins in 1886 with the founding of the Calgary Tribune. Over the following century the paper cycled through a succession of names that chart the consolidation of Calgary's press: the Alberta Tribune (1895–1899), the Albertan (1899), combined Albertan and Alberta Tribune editions, the Morning Albertan and Weekly Albertan (1902–1920), the Calgary Albertan (1924–1927), and finally the Albertan (1936–1980). On July 31, 1980, Sun Media — the company formed from the Toronto Sun's publishers — purchased the Albertan for $1.3 million and, within days, relaunched it as the Calgary Sun, giving it the same format and visual identity as its Toronto and Edmonton sister papers.

The relaunch made the Sun the third tabloid in the growing Sun chain, after Toronto (1971) and Edmonton (1978). Under Sun Media, the paper built a loyal readership with its formula of concise local news, aggressive sports coverage and right-of-centre commentary, becoming a fixture of Calgary's morning routine alongside its older broadsheet rival. In 1988 the Washington Post would cite the Sun as an example of tabloid journalism — a description the chain wore as a badge of honour rather than an insult.

Ownership changed hands in 2015 when Postmedia Network acquired Sun Media from Quebecor, bringing the Calgary Sun and the Calgary Herald under common ownership for the first time. The transaction closed on April 13, 2015, after approval by the federal Competition Bureau, and Sun Media was merged into Postmedia rather than maintained as a separate division. Since then the Sun has continued to publish as a distinct tabloid brand, sharing back-office and digital infrastructure with the Herald while preserving its own editorial voice, masthead and readership.

Content and Sections

The Calgary Sun's content formula has remained remarkably consistent since 1980. News coverage emphasizes brevity and impact: short, direct stories on city hall, crime, courts, traffic and the issues affecting ordinary Calgarians, written in plain language and designed to be read quickly. The paper's crime and courts reporting is among its most-read content, reflecting a readership that prizes accountability journalism on public safety.

Sports is the Sun's second pillar and arguably its most influential. Flames coverage is exhaustive — game stories, columns, trade rumours and fan culture — supplemented by deep reporting on the Stampeders, the Hitmen, the Roughnecks lacrosse club and amateur sport across southern Alberta. The paper's sports columnists are among the most prominent voices in Calgary media, and the Sun's sports section has historically set the agenda for the city's sports conversation.

Opinion is the third pillar: the Sun's editorial pages and columnists articulate an unapologetically conservative, populist worldview — skeptical of big government, supportive of the energy industry, tough on crime — that resonates with much of its audience and distinguishes it sharply from the more centrist broadsheets. Entertainment, lifestyle, automotive and real-estate content round out the package, and the digital site adds breaking-news blogs, video and interactive features.

Coverage and Audience

The Calgary Sun's audience is Calgary's working and middle class — tradespeople, small-business owners, sports fans and commuters — and its circulation historically reflected that broad base. As of 2015 it reported weekday circulation of 41,675, Saturday circulation of 42,744 and Sunday circulation of 51,819, figures that placed it among the largest tabloids in western Canada even as print readership declined industry-wide. Like all Canadian dailies, the Sun has seen print numbers fall while digital readership has grown, and its website now reaches far beyond the newsstand footprint.

Geographically, the Sun serves Calgary and the surrounding communities of southern Alberta, competing directly with the Herald for the morning reader while differentiating itself through tone and format rather than geography. Its political influence is outsized relative to its size: Sun columnists and editorials are closely watched by Alberta politicians, and the paper's endorsements and campaigns — on taxes, crime and energy policy — have repeatedly shaped provincial debate.

Ownership

The Calgary Sun is owned by Postmedia Network Inc., Canada's largest newspaper chain, which acquired it through the 2015 purchase of Sun Media from Quebecor. Postmedia's holdings include the National Post, the Financial Post, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and the other Sun tabloids, among more than a hundred brands. Within Postmedia, the Sun titles operate as a distinct tabloid family with shared design templates, shared national columnists and a common digital platform, while each paper retains its own local newsroom and editor.

Postmedia's own ownership has been a subject of national discussion: the publicly traded company is majority-owned by the U.S. investment firm Chatham Asset Management, with significant stakes held by investors including Leon Cooperman and Allianz. Editorially, Postmedia has centralized some functions across its papers while maintaining that each title's local editorial voice remains its own — a structure within which the Sun's populist tabloid identity has survived largely intact.

Digital Presence

The Sun's website, calgarysun.com, is a continuously updated news operation that extends the tabloid formula to the web: breaking news, sports scores and analysis, opinion columns, photo galleries and video, all packaged for mobile readers. The site runs on Postmedia's shared digital platform, offering digital subscriptions, e-edition replicas of the print paper, newsletters and single sign-on access across the company's titles.

On social media the Sun is one of the more aggressive Canadian newspaper brands, using its accounts to push breaking stories, sports takes and opinion pieces to a large following. Its digital strategy leans into the strengths of the tabloid form — speed, visual impact and strong voices — and, as of 2026, the Calgary Sun remains a daily presence in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Calgary-area readers, more than four decades after Sun Media gave the old Albertan its new name.