Fast Forward Weekly Newspaper Canada (FFWD) is a news and entertainment weekly which provides news, alternative viewpoints, entertainment information, review articles and specialized advertising. It is distributed throughout Calgary, Banff and Canmore. It is owned by Great West Newspapers, LP. With an assessed readership of 70,000 upon a distributed circulation of 30,000, the paper is one of the most widely circulated and well-respected alternative newspapers in Canada.
The paper originated in December 1995 as the city’s first alternative weekly publication.[1] As of 2007, it is the only freely distributed weekly newspaper of its type in the city, having outlasted a number of competitors including a short-lived Calgary edition of The Georgia Straight which had originally been called VOX, the long-running Calgary Mirror (which folded in 2001), and the Mirror’s successor, FYI Calgary In-Print, which ran for only five months in 2001.