Tribute magazine bumped out of Cineplex cinemas

The movie magazine Tribute loses half its circulation outlets with the substitution of Famous magazine in 128 Cineplex Odeon theatres,starting in March, according to a story in Media in Canada. Famous Magazine's circulation will now be over 650,000 copies. The readership per issue is estimated to be 1.5 million, but that could jump to two million with the March issue. Its French counterpart Famous Quebec's circulation is expected to rise to 150,000 with readership jumping to 285,000, based on PMB numbers.Cineplex Entertainment's 128 theatres serve about 60 million movie-goers annually with 1,290 screens.

The change was not unexpected after Cineplex Galaxy bought Famous Players.

Independently published Tribute (which also published Teen Tribute and Kids Tribute) still expects to publish 500,000 copies monthly for distribution in theater chains: AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Cinemas Guzzo, Empire Theaters, Magic Lantern and Landmark Cinemas.

[Tribute CEO] Stewart has not dropped ad rates, but will do more integrated media sales between the magazine and the website www.tribute.com, which gets 1.1 million unique hits per month. The company has also signed a distribution deal to launch the magazine in five large theatre chains in the US. "If we are to grow the company, we have to go beyond our borders," says Stewart.