About Times & Transcript

Times & Transcript

The Times & Transcript is a daily newspaper published in Moncton, New Brunswick, and the paper of record for the province's southeast — the bilingual hub city and its surrounding communities. It was formed on January 3, 1983, by the merger of two historic Moncton dailies, The Moncton Times (whose lineage reaches back to 1868) and The Moncton Transcript (founded 1882), ending a century of morning-evening rivalry. Owned by Postmedia Network since March 2022 (through the acquisition of Brunswick News), the paper publishes a print edition three days a week with daily news coverage continuing online, covering Moncton, southeastern New Brunswick, the provincial legislature and the region's bilingual business, university and cultural life. It also produces 14 weekly newspapers in French and English serving communities across the province.

Overview

Moncton — a metropolitan area of about 170,000, New Brunswick's largest — sits at the geographic and linguistic crossroads of the province: a bilingual city where Acadian and anglophone communities meet, home to the Université de Moncton, a transportation and logistics hub, and one of the fastest-growing urban areas in Atlantic Canada. The Times & Transcript is its daily newspaper: the newsroom covers Moncton city council, the surrounding municipalities (Dieppe, Riverview), the courts, health care, education in both languages, and the economic development of a region that has reinvented itself from railway town to distribution, call-centre and tech hub.

The paper's identity was shaped by the Irving era — from the 1940s to 2022 it was part of the Irving family's New Brunswick media holdings, making it a central exhibit in Canada's most famous press-monopoly case. Since 2022 it has operated within Postmedia, publishing in print three days a week while maintaining a daily digital newsroom.

History

The Times & Transcript's two parent papers each carried more than a century of history. The Moncton Times descended from The Times and Westmorland and Albert Local News Journal (1868–1877), becoming the Daily Times (1877–1932), the Moncton Daily Times (1932–1971) and finally the Moncton Times (1971–1982). The Moncton Transcript began as the Daily Transcript — its first issue published May 24, 1882 — and became the Moncton Transcript in 1906, publishing through 1982. For generations the two papers divided Moncton's readership as morning and evening dailies under the Irving family's ownership.

The Irving connection began in the 1940s, when K.C. Irving — having bought the Saint John Telegraph-Journal in 1944 — quietly acquired the Moncton morning and evening dailies as well, part of his systematic purchase of every English-language daily in the province. The concentration drew the attention of federal competition authorities: a trial judge ruled that the Irving family had too much control of New Brunswick's media, ordered the Moncton papers sold and imposed a $150,000 fine on K.C. Irving Ltd. The ruling was overturned — first by the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick and then by the Supreme Court of Canada — on the ground that "public detriment" from the monopoly had not been established beyond a reasonable doubt. The case remains a landmark in Canadian media-ownership law.

On October 22, 1982, the merger of the two Moncton dailies was announced; the first issue of the combined Times & Transcript was published on January 3, 1983. In 1998 the Irving family created Brunswick News to consolidate their media holdings — by then including the Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton dailies plus weeklies and broadcast interests — and the paper operated within that structure until March 2022, when Postmedia Network acquired Brunswick News (nine newspapers, including the province's three English-language dailies and six weeklies) for $7.5 million in cash plus $8.6 million in variable voting shares. Print frequency was subsequently reduced: the Monday print edition was discontinued in May 2022 (attributed to rising fuel and delivery costs), and in March 2023 the print edition was cut to three days a week, with daily coverage continuing online.

Content and Sections

The modern Times & Transcript leads with Moncton and the southeast: city council, the region's municipalities, the courts, health care (including the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre and the Moncton Hospital), education in both official languages, and the economic development of a bilingual hub — logistics, retail, the growing tech sector and the university. Provincial coverage follows the New Brunswick legislature in Fredericton and the policies affecting the southeast.

The paper's bilingual context shapes its journalism: Moncton-Dieppe is the heart of Acadian urban life, and the Times & Transcript covers the francophone community's institutions — the Université de Moncton, the francophone school district, the cultural scene — alongside the anglophone city. Sports coverage follows the QMJHL's Moncton Wildcats, university athletics (including the U de M Aigles Bleus) and community sport. Opinion pages carry editorials, columns and letters from across the southeast, and feature sections cover arts, food, homes, health and community life. The paper's 14 community weeklies — in French and English — extend its reach to the towns and villages of the region.

Coverage and Audience

The Times & Transcript serves Moncton and southeastern New Brunswick — the metro area, the Fundy and Northumberland Strait communities, Westmorland, Albert and Kent counties — a market of roughly 300,000 people, bilingual and growing. Its audience is the region's bilingual professional and working class: public servants, university communities, logistics and retail workers, and the Acadian and anglophone families of the southeast.

As the region's only daily newspaper, the paper's civic role is central: it is the primary source of sustained accountability journalism for Moncton's municipal government and the region's institutions. Its archives — reaching back through the Times to 1868 and the Transcript to 1882 — document the railway era, the Acadian renaissance, the bilingual city's growth and the making of modern southeastern New Brunswick.

Ownership

The Times & Transcript is owned by Postmedia Network Inc., which acquired it in March 2022 through the purchase of Brunswick News Inc. — the Irving-family company, incorporated in December 1998, that had consolidated the family's newspaper holdings. Within Postmedia, the paper shares national content, digital platforms and corporate services with the chain's other papers while maintaining its Moncton newsroom and editorial identity.

Postmedia itself is publicly traded and majority-owned by the U.S. investment firm Chatham Asset Management. The transition from Irving family ownership — which had lasted the better part of eight decades — to the national chain marked the end of one of the most concentrated media-ownership stories in Canadian history, and brought print-frequency reductions even as the paper's digital newsroom continued daily publication.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital edition carries the Times & Transcript's daily journalism online: breaking news, e-edition access, newsletters, photo galleries and community features, serving readers across southeastern New Brunswick and the region's diaspora. The site operates on Postmedia's shared digital infrastructure, offering digital subscriptions and e-editions.

On social media the paper distributes breaking news, Wildcats coverage and community stories to a following concentrated in the Moncton region. As of 2026, the Times & Transcript continues to publish — in print three days a week and online every day — more than 40 years after the 1983 merger, and 150-plus years after its oldest ancestral title first appeared, still the daily record of New Brunswick's southeast.

The January 3, 1983 merger ended a century of Moncton morning-evening rivalry: the Times (1868) and the Transcript (1882) became one. Through Brunswick News to Postmedia's March 2022 acquisition, and the move to three-days-a-week print in March 2023, the Times & Transcript remains the bilingual hub's paper of record.

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