Magazines Canada to allow business-to-business magazine membership

Trade magazines are in -- if they want to be. The annual general meeting of Magazines Canada, the country's consumer magazine association, has passed a board recommendation that changes the bylaws to allow business-to-business titles to join.

This opens the door to Rogers Publishing to bring its stable of trade magazines -- which recently left the Canadian Business Press -- to join Magazines Canada. It also opens the door to the kind of "big tent" approach to represent all magazine interests under one umbrella, something that has been written about frequently here (see related posts below).

(It is also not entirely coincidental that Ian Locks, the recently retired President of the British Periodical Publishers Association, made a presentation today at the MagNet conference, outlining the 20-year development of an all-encompassing association that not only represents b-to-b but also custom publishers and has alliances with online and directory publishers.)

Related posts:

• Segal to CBP Board: the merger train is leaving...
• Magazines Canada board recommends allowing trade magazines as members
• Rogers pullout costs CBP 20% of membership revenue
• CBP Prez says trade publishing association should stay independent
• Rogers b-to-b titles to pull out of Canadian Business Press
• One magazine organization