November 30, 2006
House & Home celebrates 20^th anni

Lynda Reeves (left) with editor Cobi Ladner

Two burly oyster shuckers and a team of wine servers and bartenders catered to guests who munched happily on Asian hors d’oeuvres, smoked salmon, caviar, lamb chops and miniature hamburgers. After 90 minutes of mingling in these circumstances, the crowd filed into one of the theatres for an advance screening of Nancy Myers’ upcoming romantic comedy The Holiday, set for release later this month. Security guards from Sony Pictures scanned the darkened cinema with night-vision viewfinders in search of rogue videographers looking to make a bootleg copy of the film—a film in which home-swapping plays a central role.

More than 1,000 homes have been featured in the magazine over the past 20 years. The anniversary issue is currently on newsstands

The opening credits on the screen were a tribute not to the movie but rather H&H’s designers, advertisers, homeowners and partners who’ve worked with the magazine over the years. The speeches were short and sweet, first with Kirby Miller (vice-president, sales and operations) thanking the guests and announcing the magazine was donating $10,000 to AIDS research. Miller introduced editor Cobi Ladner (with the magazine for about 15 years), who thanked her editorial team and contributing designers, stylists and writers (even though they miss their deadlines). Ladner then introduced president and prime mover Lynda Reeves. “I have the most amazing team.” See her speech below.

November 28, 2006
Newspaper vet with mag ties succeeds Clark
TORONTO—Doug Knight doesn’t speak Spanish, but that didn’t stop him and business partner John Paton from building up a chain of Spanish-language newspapers in the U.S. He succeeds Donna Clark as president of St. Joseph Media this coming Monday.

Doug Knight doesn't speak Italian, either

St. Joseph announced the news yesterday. Knight spent two decades with the Financial Post franchise (both the daily tabloid and magazine) before taking on the role of publisher and CEO of The Toronto Sun in 1997. He resigned in 2000 and later formed Knight Paton Media Group with fellow Canadian and Sun media exec John Paton. The two men counseled on media mergers and acquisitions and, with financial backers, grew that Spanish newspaper chain stateside. He and Paton worked out of New York under the corporate banner of impreMedia.

Knight cashed out as principal, chairman and CEO of impreMedia in September 2005, in part to be closer to a daughter, currently enrolled at U of T. He has another daughter at the University of Edinburgh. Both study languages.

Walrus publisher Shelley Ambrose (Photo credit: Tom Sandler)

“Douglas is extremely creative,” says Paton. “I think he will be instrumental in mapping out a way forward.”

Reached on his cell in downtown Toronto yesterday (where he was about to pose for a Globe and Mail photographer for a story in today’s paper), Knight says he’s “very keen” to get back into the magazine world. He was, after all, publisher of Financial Post magazine for four years in the early ’90s as well as a long-time PMB board member. “It’s a world I feel very close to,” he says.

James Adams’ coverage of the appointment in today’s Globe pointed out that Knight is romantically involved with Walrus publisher Shelley Ambrose, who was appointed to that post earlier this month. Asked by Adams if the couple would be sharing publishing advice, Knight remarked with a laugh, “Shelley will be doing her thing and I’ll be doing mine.”

November 27, 2006
Transcon drops other TV shoe
MONTREAL—When Transcontinental Media announced the closure of the print edition of TV Guide last month, it said that its French-language counterpart TV Hebdo “continues as normal.” Not quite.

Transcontinental is selling its 50% stake in the digest-sized glossy to partner TVA

The company announced last Friday that it’s selling its 50% stake in the listings title to partner Les Publications TVA Inc., which is the publishing arm of Quebecor Media. “This decision,” the company said in a released statement, “is in line with the Corporation’s strategy announced on October 19, 2006 to publish TV Guide solely as an online publication as of the end of November 2006.”.

A Transcontinental spokesperson told MastheadOnline on Oct. 30 that “our transitioning of TV Guide to a Web-only product does not affect what we do with TV Hebdo. TV Hebdo continues as normal and we have no changes to announce.”

Unlike TV Guide, run-of-press ad pages in TV Hebdo for the third quarter of this year were up 5.3% while TV Guide was down 4.8%. Circulation has been sliding, however. TV Hebdo was selling about 96,000 copies at the newsstand and 94,000 subscriptions in 2000. Those numbers have declined to 46,000 and 73,000 this year, respectively.

November 24, 2006
Donna Clark set to ditch her BlackBerry
TORONTO—After several weeks of working out the details with her employer, St. Joseph Media president Donna Clark announced to staff that she’s stepping down Dec. 1. St. Joseph Corp. chairman Tony Gagliano says that he’s currently in talks with Clark’s successor, who is someone from outside the company. An announcement will likely be made next week, Gagliano says.

St.Joseph Media president Donna Clark will step down Dec. 1. On the agenda: trips to Barbados and Southeast Asia.

Clark was appointed president almost 15 months ago and oversaw a complete overhaul of the company’s digital strategy, a medium of which she has long been a supporter. She began seriously reflecting on her overall situation this past summer after a couple of close friends experienced “health scares,” she says. The demands of work, she concluded, were taking up too much time.

“It’s a lot of work to head up an organization,” she says. “I’m at that life stage: my husband is semi-retired; I have two kids, both in university now, so there’s sort of an empty nest. So, I really took stock after working here a year. It’s great; I love the people and I love the brands but, as I said to my husband, it’s just [sometimes] I start to feel like I’m going to run out of gas a little bit, and it’s time to ask, ‘Ok, what’s in this for me in terms of life.’ …It’s not 24 -7 but sometimes it feels like that. You’re always on, you’re always thinking about it. You’re always trying to figure out what’s next. When I look at that wheel of balance and I see that three quarters of my waking life is about St. Joseph Media and a quarter is about driving to and from and trying to maintain relationships and stuff, it’s just not enough. So, I’m fortunate that I can [step back] and, why not? ”

Clark has already booked two trips, she says. A Christmas jaunt to Barbados and a tour of Southeast Asia “in the first quarter” of 2007, she says, the terminology of business being second nature after a long career in marketing and publishing.

Clark, who is about 50, is a Toronto native who worked at Procter & Gamble through university, was a brand manager at Warner Lambert (now Pfizer) and Campbells and a vice-president in charge of the Green Giant brand in the early 1990s. In 1998 she succeeded Lee Simpson as publisher of Chatelaine and rose to the position of senior vice-president of Rogers Women’s Group before the position was eliminated following a corporate re-organization in November 2004.

“You know, when I made the decision, I said to Tony [Gagliano], ‘The one thing that I would really appreciate is to move out quick,’ because [when you linger] you’re not an effective leader, you don’t want to prolong the agony, so to speak,” she says with a laugh. “You want to get on with it. It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

Clark says she’ll have no problem keeping busy. There are books that she has neglected to read and personal projects, such as maybe looking for a new home address. “My son says, ‘Mom, you’ll be bored.’ I said, ‘Trust me, I won’t be bored.’ I’ve got lots of stuff planned.”

One of those plans is to hand in her BlackBerry. “Right now, it owns me and I’m so tired of it. I’m going to be BlackBerry-free for a while.”

November 23, 2006
Yet another upstart in the luxury category
VANCOUVER—A Calgary-based publisher is hoping to transplant its rebranded luxury-lifestyle freebie to the West Coast, occupying the home-turf of category leader Nuvo.

Formerly known as Calgary Living, Opulence now distributes a Vancouver edition. Circulation: 30,000.

Formerly known as Calgary Living, the bimonthly magazine that launched in 2004 changed its name to Opulence as of the July/August issue in order to accommodate the introduction of a Vancouver edition, which debuted last month on newsstands and as an insert to the National Post. Circulation of both editions is 30,000. The magazines are owned by Clear Quest Media.

Chairman Jonathan Molina, who is also editor-in-chief of both titles, says he intends to have the magazines audited by CCAB by mid-2007.

The rates for a one-time, four-colour ad are $4,587 (Calgary edition) and $5,000 (Vancouver edition).

Nuvo, which pioneered the category in Canada in 1998, has a national circulation of almost 50,000 and is audited by CCAB.

November 21, 2006

Available on Quebec newsstands for $3.95. Publisher LC Media bought Cycle Canada/Moto Journal in 2005.

Scooter: Un monde à découvrir (“a world to discover”) launched late October. The standard-size quarterly will build its subscription base, but is for now a newsstand-only offering, with a draw of 10,000 copies in Quebec. The rate for a one-time, four-colour ad is $1,900.

LC Media became a serious player in the category after it acquired Cycle Canada in 2005. The company also publishes Le Guide de l’auto, Le monde de l’auto, ATV Guide/Le guide du VTT, Le monde du VTT, ATV Trail Rider, and Cycle Canada’s French-language equivalent, Moto Journal.

November 20, 2006

Jim Sutherland at the 1993 Western Magazine Awards

“I’ve been working full-time as a magazine editor now for almost 20 years,” says Sutherland, “and inside, my inner Bohemian was saying, ‘This is all wrong.’ I just finally felt that I had sort of reached a point where I felt, professionally, that I could go back to writing, something that I really enjoy.” He’ll serve as a consultant for Transcontinental throughout 2007.

In the past few years Sutherland has squeezed in a variety of freelance assignments, primarily for Report on Business magazine and enRoute. His client list should widen considerably next year. While he wouldn’t reveal much detail about future projects, he did say that he’s planning to profile a major political personality for a U.S. magazine.

The seasoned editor during a panel discussion at Magazines University 2004

Sutherland’s journalism career stretches back to the 1980s, when he was editor of Saskatchewan Business and later an editor at the NewWest Review before he enrolled at the Banff Publishing Workshop in 1987. He’s been editor of Western Living since 2001. Before that he was editor of the Vancouver Sun’s Mix section during Neil Reynolds' tenure as Sun editor. From 1993 to 1999 he was editor of Vancouver magazine, Transcon’s city title. Prior to that he had been an associate editor at Western Living, then edited by Paula Brook.

“I’m looking forward to having more flexibility,” he says. “But I can also see the possibility that projects will have me working late nights and such, which I’m quite looking forward to.”

November 16, 2006
Tax credit for Ontario websites
TORONTO—The provincial government’s media development agency is reminding Ontario magazine publishers that labour- and marketing-related expenditures associated with building and promoting their online products are eligible for a tax credit.

Toronto Life publisher Sharon McAuley (St. Joseph Media) and Quarto Communications (Cottage Life, explore) general manager Terry Sellwood attended the info session, as did many other publishers from such companies as Kenilworth Media, House & Home Media and Transcontinental Media.

The Ontario Media Development Corporation, an agency of the Ministry of Culture, held an information session yesterday organized by Magazines Canada outlining a program that has been in place since at least 2001 but which only a handful of magazine publishers have been accessing. The Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit is one of six credit schemes intended to spur the development of cultural enterprises in the province. (The other five industries to which the credits apply are: book publishing, film/television, film/television production services, computer animation and music.)

Not eligible are: non-profit and charity-status operations; sites built in partnership with an unincorporated entity; sites created by non-Ontario businesses; sites created outside of Ontario; sites that are primarily (50% or more) intended to promote product (say, Canadian Tire’s website); and sites built primarily (50% or more) for interpersonal communication, such as a message board.

Successful applicants can write off up to 20% of associated labour costs. Furthermore, 20% of marketing and distribution costs can be written off to a maximum of $100,000 per digital product.

Currently, eligible businesses mustn’t have annual revenues exceeding $20 million and assets exceeding $10 million, but a proposed amendment currently in second reading in the provincial legislature would boost the labour credit-rate cap to 30% while offering a 20% labour expenditure credit rate to corporations that exceed the revenue and assets caps.

For more information, please go here.

November 15, 2006
Trial date set for magazine distributor
TORONTO—Alex Petraitis, who stepped down as chairman of magazine wholesaler Metro News in January 2004 following his arrest for conspiring to murder his wife, has been free on $3.15 million bail for almost three years. His trial date is set for Sept. 17, 2007 in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice. If the trial commences as planned, it will have taken almost four years for the case to be heard.

A Toronto Sun story published in September 2004 reported that Alex Petraitis was allegedly being blackmailed by the ex-common law spouse of his mistress

A front-page story published in the Toronto Sun in September 2004 reported on a pre-trial hearing. Statements containing admissions by would-be assassin Kerry Robert Anderson were read in court alleging that Petraitis and his dominatrix lover Sandra Lynn Rinella hired Anderson to murder his wife of 40 years. The plan allegedly soured when Anderson, Rinella’s ex-common-law spouse, who began taping his conversations with the couple, threatened to expose their plot to Kirsten Petraitis unless he received $1 million and a Hummer. Petraitis is reportedly worth $50 million. The Toronto court was told that Anderson allegedly received almost $80,000 from Rinella, a key to the Petraitis cottage, a photo of Kirsten and a description of her car. Anderson was to abduct and murder Kirsten while the Petraitises vacationed at their North Kawartha cottage, the court heard.

Petraitis was arrested on Jan. 16, 2004 after he and his wife were pulled over in what police described as a “high-risk takedown” as the couple made their way to their cottage. Petraitis was released on Jan. 30, 2004, after posting $3.15  million in bail. The Peterborough Examiner has reported that Kirsten filed for divorce shortly before his release.

November 14, 2006
OMDC announces 27 grant recipients
TORONTO—The latest crop of publishers to benefit from the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Magazine Fund have been announced. Each of the following magazines may receive up to $25,000 in funding.

The OMDC has not specified how much each publisher received, nor what the money will be used for. It noted, however, that the program is "competitive." Note: Graphic Monthly, a sister title to Masthead, received about $9,000, and Masthead itself is a past recipient.

The fund is intended to strengthen Canadian magazines produced by Ontario-based publishers. According to the application guidelines, it “provides funding of up to $25,000 to Canadian-owned and -controlled, Ontario-based magazine publishers for projects with clear, objective and measurable results that support the overall business growth of the magazine publisher.”

This year’s recipients:

November 13, 2006
Young gun jacks writers' rates
BURNABY, B.C.—He may only be 28, but Alive Publishing Group president Ryan Benn oversees a staff of 30 and a books-and-magazine publishing operation that generates sales of $6.3 million.

Alive magazine was launched in 1975 and generates $5.2 million is sales

Benn, a former fuel cell component salesman, was profiled in last week’s issue of Business in Vancouver. The article says that Richmond, B.C.-based printer Teldon International acquired Alive Publishing in December 2004 from founder Siegfried Gursche. Teldon’s “seven-figure purchase” included debt assumption, the article stated.

By this time, Benn had ensconced himself as a consultant in the manufacturing sector earning $150,000 per year, the article says. “I looked at [Alive] as an opportunity to move to a new vertical, or a new challenge, that would show I could be versatile,” he told BiV. He was hired after a 10-month search by Teldon.

Since taking over, Benn has grown revenues by 5%, trended circulation upward to the 200,000 mark, banned advertorial and tripled rates for writers, BiV reports. Benn is said to be planning expansion into the U.S. market “within five years by acquiring a natural health magazine, such as Los Angeles-based Let’s Live.”

The article states that Alive magazine has sales of $5.2 million. Alive Books, another division of the company, is in the process of being sold. The monthly magazine is sold to 950 health/wellness stores for an average of $1.05 per issue.

Print show has delights for publishers
TORONTO—The Print World show in Toronto this Nov. 18-20 has several attractions for publishers, including a new Design City area and the Adobe Software Theatre. Masthead readers can get a $5 discount off the admission price by clicking here.

Notable exhibitors for publishers include Adobe, Quark, Apple systems vendors Carbon Computing and Loop Enterprise, and stock photo service IStockphoto. Pantone, Enfocus, Epson, HP, Canon and Xerox will also be there for hardcore proofing and colour geeks. The Forest Stewardship Council for enviro-friendly paper information, and mills including Domtar and M-real are also participating. Printers including Colour Innovations, Flash Reproductions and Marcam Printers will be on hand to show the latest in high-end print technology.

Print World and Design City take place this coming Saturday to Monday, Nov. 18 to 20, at the Direct Energy Centre, formerly the National Trade Centre on the Exhibition Grounds in downtown Toronto.

November 9, 2006
New mag for chronically ill Canucks
VANCOUVER—While awaiting medical attention in the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital, 27-year-old Amanda Semenoff examined the press proofs of her premier issue.

Quarterly launches with $75,000 in program funding

Semenoff, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease at the age of 21, saw the need to provide a meeting point for Canadians dealing with chronic conditions. The result: Chronically Canadian magazine.

With an initial circulation of 10,000, the quarterly targets “a vibrant community of people thriving through the adversity of chronic pain and digestive disorders.” Semenoff anticipates that the subscription base will grow to 40,000 within two years. Circ now is a mix of controlled bulk drops, direct mail outs to doctors’ offices and paying subscribers ($24.95 per year). The cover price at newsstands is $7.95.

Editorial in the first issue (68 pages, perfect-bound) includes features entitled, “Managing the workplace,” “Navigating the Canadian medical system,” and “Top 12 Ways to kick the Chronic Illness Blues.” Dealing with the unspoken is very much a part of the magazine’s mandate. For example, promotional material suggests a future article might be entitled, “Sometimes I pee when I laugh.”

From the left: publisher Amanda Semenoff and editors Brigitte Slaughter and Laura Gosselin

Like CLB Media’s medical titles (Stitches, and Stitches for Patients), a sense of humour will play a central editorial role. Regular departments include: “Colostomy Corner,” “Sex and the sickness,” and “Gastro Guru.”

“If you can't laugh at it,” says Semenoff, “you can’t get through.”

Ads in the premier issue represented personal care products, a book publisher, a health centre, an event organizer and a foundation.

Financing comes from three sources: $15,000 in funding from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation; $50,000 from VanCity; and three family investors.

Semenoff’s two-woman editorial team of Brigitte Slaughter and Laura Gosselin responded to Semenoff’s want ads on Craigslist.com.

November 8, 2006
Parenting mag for Atlantic Canadians
HALIFAX—Today’s Parent ad reps who thrive on competition will love this: yet another magazine targeting parents has launched. Our Children targets parents in Nova Scotia. It’s published three times a year (October, January and May) by Metro Guide Publishing, which also produces more than 10 other titles, including Where Halifax and the monthly Business Voice magazine.

Published three times a year targeting Nova Scotian parents

Our Children is distributed through all elementary schools belonging to the Halifax Regional School Board. “We are delighted by the opportunity to produce Atlantic Canada’s only parenting magazine,” says associate publisher Patty Baxter in a released statement. “It will give parents lots of locally based information on a variety of topics to help support their child’s health, body and mind and ultimately their future.”

Baxter could not be reached for comment. A full-page ad goes for $1,500. About 25,000 copies will be distributed with a subscription drive in the works. Today’s Parent, comparatively, has about 6,200 copies in circulation in Nova Scotia, but only National, Western Canada and Ontario editions available to advertisers. For Atlantic Canadian advertisers, Today’s Parent has a prohibitively high CPM of $2,948; Our Children’s is somewhat lower at $60.

This coming March, Toronto-based Family Communications will be launching a national quarterly called Parents Canada. Last January, St. Joseph Media began to reinvigorate its parenting mag, Canadian Family, as a serious rival to Rogers’ Today’s Parent.

The parenting category is heating up, says Zenith Optimedia president Sunni Boot, because the children of Boomers are themselves having kids and they lack the parenting skills that were once passed on within a community of relatives and larger, extended families. In an age of working parents and single-parent families, these traditional communities are shrinking or are non-existent in many cases.

November 7, 2006
Former Gzowski “manager” joins Walrus
TORONTO—The Walrus has appointed a new publisher following the resignation of Bernard Schiff in September. Shelley Ambrose has been a newspaper reporter, fundraiser, event organizer and Peter Gzowski’s right-hand woman during his Morningside years with CBC Radio.

“Although I have never been a magazine publisher, The Walrus is not a traditional magazine,” she says in a statement released yesterday.“It is a unique product…a forum for ideas and a vehicle through which Canadian writing and art shines. The Walrus will continue to contribute substantially to public discourse, and to create a deep footprint in Canada’s rich cultural soil.”

Editor Ken Alexander, who says he has invested more than $2.5 million into the magazine during its frantic waiting period for charitable status (obtained, finally, in December 2005), says the magazine’s brisk turnover rates at both the board and editorial levels (see News Archives, Sept. 21) are to be expected at a magazine that’s completing “phase one” of its start-up process. Stage two, he says, has begun.

“Shelley’s arrival coincides with the one-year anniversary of The Walrus Foundation receiving charitable status,” says Alexander in the release. “With her, the organization will be able to realize its full potential. She is an extraordinarily dynamic person, and I could not be more pleased. Shelley is just the tonic we need for phase two.”

Writing in his last column for 50 Plus magazine (February 2002 issue), Gzowski gave a nod to “the incomparable Shelley Ambrose, who ran my life when we both worked at the CBC for so many years.” Most recently, Ambrose worked in the public affairs office at the Canadian consulate in New York. Her principal task will be to attract endowments to The Walrus Foundation, the magazine’s financial umbilical chord.

Paid circulation at the magazine itself continues to grow with the 60,000 mark expected to be reached once holiday gift subs are tallied, says circulation director Greg Keilty.

November 6, 2006
Globe kills TV mag
TORONTO—This is a bad month for TV magazines. Just two weeks ago, Transcontinental Media announced that its weekly TV Guide was retreating to the Web, bringing 30 years of ink-on-paper entertainment journalism to an end. The next to fall? The Globe and Mail’s weekend television guide, Globe Television.

The penultimate issue; next Saturday's is the last.

However, while the magazine’s last issue will be the Nov. 11 edition, ink and paper are still very much a part of the picture. The contents will migrate to the Friday edition of the paper, specifically to its pull-out tabloid entertainment section called 7. Globe Television editor Andrew Ryan says the move will add about 12 to 16 new pages to the tabloid section, with easier-to-read grids; editorial content will actually increase, he added, noting that full pages will be given over to documentary and family programming reviews, for example.

The Globe established the weekly in 2001, no doubt to capture a share of the advertising that the Toronto Star was so effectively gathering up with its weekly television listings mag, Starweek. In 2001, Starweek published 1,194 run-of-press ad pages generating $19.4 million at ratecard pricing, according to LNA Canada. In 2005, those numbers had slipped to 601 pages for $12.2 million.

November 2, 2006
Magazine advertising jumps in third quarter
NATIONAL—The latest sales data from Leading National Advertisers (Canada) reveals that 86 of the country’s largest magazines posted a collective increase of 6.5% in run-of-press ad pages in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2005. Not taking rubbery ratecards into account, that translates into a total quarterly aspend of $149.9 million, up 11.5% from $134.4 million for the same period in 2005.

Many titles enjoyed truly impressive double-digit gains in advertising. Following is a sector-by-sector (or, in some cases, a rival-to-rival) breakdown, based on growth or decline in ROP page counts—the purest measure of success:

Up 52.3%

Business: Canadian Business (14.9%); Report on Business (27.9%); Financial Post Business (-16.5%); Affaires Plus (50.1%); Profit (52.3%); MoneySense (63.4%).

General interest: Reader’s Digest (17.5%); Selection du Reader’s Digest (1%); Canadian Geographic (13.4%); Vancouver (4%); Toronto Life (-4.2%); Now (6.5%); eye (10%); enRoute (8.2%).

Greenthumb: Gardening Life (36.4%); Canadian Gardening (28.7%).

Up 97.6%

Parenting: Canadian Family (24.2%); Today’s Parent (3.5%).

Up 45.7%

Shelter: Canadian House & Home (45.7%); Style at Home (32.5%); Canadian Home & Country (97.6%); Harrowsmith CountryLife (-4.7%); Decormag (21.8%); Les Idees de ma maison (10%); Decoration chez-soi (12.6%).

Shopping: LouLou (88%); LouLou, French edition (57.7%); Wish (-15.2%).

English edition up 88%

Special interest: explore (-14.3); Outdoor Canada (1.2%); Ontario Out of Doors (-0.4%); Canadian Home Workshop (14.4%); Cottage Life (-5.9%).

Up 12.6%

Weekly news: Maclean’s (12.6%); Time (8.1%). Fashion: Flare (-7.1%); Fashion (1%); The Look (-25.9%).

Women’s service: Chatelaine (24.4%); Châtelaine (11.2%); Glow (17.5%); Canadian Living (23.5%); Homemakers (41.9%); Madame (2.1%); Elle Quebec (-12.4%); Elle Canada (5.7%); Clin d’oeil (-16.2%); Coupe de pouce (26.8%).