NewspaperDirect distributes 100,000 newspapers per month

Article in the Toronto Star about what they call digital newspapers and I call on-demand newspapers. Really, neither term is very good. "Digital newspapers" doesn't say much -- aren't they all produced digitally these days? -- and is easily mistaken for "digital editions" (which are themselves a bit hard to pin down). "On demand" can be inaccurate, because many are downloaded automatically or even printed in predetermined numbers.

The problem is that these products -- roughly speaking, newspapers produced for big web offset press sites but that are also made available (generally as PDF) over the internet for very small-scale printing, usually by third-party vendors -- are being categorised in a way that will increasingly become meaningless:
1, the file format and the means of distribution is by no means unique to "digital newspapers".
2, the on-demandness is, as I've already said, unnecessary.
3, the difference between "digital newspaper" (electronically distributed but read as hard copy) and "digital edition" (read either online or downloaded and printed out) is pretty blurred: most "digital edition" providers allow you to print hard copy in much the same format as a "digital newspaper" (albeit without stitching); and the introduction of PressDisplay positions the biggest "digital newspaper" provider in the "digital edition" market. So the only real distinguishing features lie at the the point of access: in the ownership of the accessing device (vendor or customer), and in purchasing method ("point of sale" or subscription). And even these distinctions will become blurred as the world gets more wireless and as devices get more various.

Anyway, this article has a decent description of NewspaperDirect's business model. And for now, NewspaperDirect think there is a distinction: they say that digital edition provider NewsStand "competes with NewspaperDirect online, but not in print".
(From TheStar.com)