Back to the future for Playback

Playback, the film and television production trade magazine, is making significant changes, splitting out its breaking news coverage into a daily online newsletter linked to a redesigned website and focussing the magazine (which will still appear every two weeks) more on features and opinion. The creation of the newsletter hearkens back to an earlier time when Playback subscribers received a twice-a-week newsletter by fax.

"This new outlet for our coverage will enable Playback to respond more quickly to events than we have been able with our biweekly publication schedule," said editor Mark Dillon. "Longtime readers will recognize the newsletter as a direct descendant of First Take, a twice-weekly newsletter initially sent out to Playback subscribers via fax, later migrating to e-mail. A number of industry decision-makers lamented the phasing out of First Take, and the nearest we've had since is the Playback Preview (which may have linked you to this column), an e-mail which gives readers an early taste of some of the top stories coming up in our next print edition."

Playback, with a circulation of about 10,000 copies, serves the production, broadcasting and interactive media communities in Canada and is published by Brunico Communications, which also publishes Strategy, a trade magazine for the advertising industry.

The first newsletter comes out January 22; the redesigned magazine comes out in February.