Canadian Business Press buys the Magazine University name

Canadian Business Press (CBP), the service and lobbying group for many of Canada's trade publications has purchased the rights to the name Magazines University from North Island Publishing along with an associated web property. The deal means that CBP will continue running the annual Mags U event (and, possibly some sort of trade show) that had previously been co-produced with North Island's magazine Masthead, which is folding by year's end. The deal was reported yesterday by Masthead.

That would mean there will continue to be two June events offering professional development seminars to the magazine industry, the other being MagNet, run by a partnership of Magazines Canada, the Canadian Circulation Marketing Association (CMC) and the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME), the Professional Writers Association of Canada, the Canadian Authors Association and associated with the various provincial magazine associations and the Editors Association of Canada and .

“We are pleased that CBP will continue the Mags U tradition,” said North Island president Alexander Donald. “We have been great partners for many years, and we feel this agreement that clarifies ownership is in the best interests of both Mags U and the industry at large.”

“The Magazines University trademark is very important to us at the CBP because the name has been associated with quality and excellence within the magazine publishing community,” said Alex Papanou, Chair of the CBP. “The CBP and its partners will continue to provide our industry with a quality event that we can all be proud of.”

Interestingly, the name Magazines University is only North Island's to sell because it trademarked the brand in 2002 to the surprise of its then partners. The collaborative and cooperative approach that had begun many years before soon deteriorated. Magazines University had been launched in 1992 as a collaboration between the Canadian Periodical Publishers Association (the predecessor to Magazines Canada) and Masthead and later involved other partner organizations to a greater or lesser degree, including CBP and CMC. The industry associations provided the seminars and Masthead ran a trade show and a joint working group shared marketing, costs, revenues and responsibility for the event.

CBP's move is complicated somewhat by the fact that Rogers Media trade publications have left the organization and joined Magazines Canada and the MagNet conference will be offering a range of b2b-related seminars.

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