Jim Shenkman has left the building at Brunico Communications

Jim Shenkman, the founder of Brunico Communications Ltd., publishers of Playback, Strategy, KidScreen, RealScreen and 'Boardsmagazines, has stepped down as acting chairman, a position he held for the past year, since the company was sold to a group of investors led by now-president/CEO Russell Goldstein. "After 22 years, I'm ready for change," Shenkman said in a story published in Playback and Strategy and on the Media in Canada website.

His future plans include continued involvement with the International Centre - a Toronto convention facility for which he sits on the board of directors - and is in talks to help produce a conference for an unnamed non-profit organization. Shenkman is also looking for investment opportunities in entrepreneurial companies looking to grow outside of Canada. "I'd rather be investing than managing day-to-day."

Shenkman, a lawyer, got into publishing after a failed attempt in 1985 to win a bid for a Toronto radio station license.

"I had been frustrated by that," he recalls, so he channeled that interest in media towards publishing when he realized there was no business press coverage of the radio industry at the time. "There was only Broadcaster magazine, but it was not really talking about business news, it was more about equipment."

So Shenkman joined forces with former Marketing magazine associate editor Mark Smyka in 1986, and together they launched Playback (a biweekly which now focuses on the business of TV and film in Canada) and its parentco Brunico Communications in August that year. (Brunico is named for a small town in Italy).