Going all-in on the digital front, Postmedia Network has annouced the launch of iPad apps for its 10 major market dailies across the country.

The apps include content pulled from the web and print editions of the papers, as well as mobile-specific content, and video and photo galleries. The layouts on the apps also give advertisers a new way to target audiences through Postmedia Network properties, Malcolm Kirk, EVP, digital media, tells MiC.

To launch the apps, Postmedia Network is relying on a three-month sponsorship model from national advertisers Air Canada, Cisco, Rogers Communications and Disney’s Tron: Legacy.

‘When you look at the sponsorships, what you see is advertising that is far more interactive,’ Kirk says. ‘For Disney, you’ve got a trailer from Tron and from Rogers, you’ve got [downloadable content for smartphones]. It gives you a far more dynamic, interactive advertising experience that is really well suited to the tablet platform.’

The app is available for free at the iTunes App Store and offers a ‘heat map’ so readers can see content that is most popular in their neighbourhoods.

The papers that now have iPad apps are the Vancouver Sun, the Times Colonist (Victoria), the Province (Vancouver), the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Leader-Post (Regina), the StarPhoenix (Saskatoon), the Ottawa Citizen, the Windsor Star and the Gazette (Montreal).

The apps are being promoted, beginning today, in the Postmedia Network’s newspapers and on the newspaper websites. The ads will run up to Christmas and then into the early part of January to raise awareness as people start receiving the tablets as gifts.

‘[It’s] meant to coincide with what we believe to be a really active purchasing period for the iPad, so the flurry of activity will be through that time,’ Kirk says.