Explore magazine sold to OP Publishing of Vancouver by Cottage Life Media

[This post has been updated]  
It has been confirmed that Explore magazine has been sold  in a deal with OP Publishing of Vancouver which involves a swap whereby OP's Cottage magazine moves to Cottage Life Media Inc. The financial details of the transaction have not been revealed. However there is a clear benefit to Cottage Life Media Inc. which is now better able to offer a national buy to advertisers. Despite it undeniable success, the great majority of Cottage Life magazine's paid circulation of 70,000 (905,000 readership, according to PMB)  has always been in Ontario; this will now be augmented with the largely western circulation of Cottage, which claims a readership of 20,000.

[Thursday's post:]
Explore magazine, is reported to have been sold by Cottage Life Media Inc. of Toronto to OP Publishing of Vancouver. Although there has been no official confirmation, its winter issue will be the last under the editorship of James Little  and art director Gary Davidson.

OP Publishing produces Western Sportsman, B.C. Outdoors Sport, Pacific Yachting, Pacific Yachting - Pacific Northwest, Cottage, and Canadian Aviator.

Explore, a quarterly which has a paid circulation of about 25,000 has been part of a stable of special interest publications put together by what was then Quarto Communications, the flagship of which is Cottage Life. Other pubs are Canadian Home Workshop and Outdoor Canada. 

The sale is in the wake of considerable restructuring at Cottage Life Media following a significant minority purchase of the company by specialty television player Blue Ant Media, controlled by Michael Macmillan, but also owned in part by Torstar.

Founded in 1981 in the past seven years Explore has been named Best Magazine of the Year by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors three times. Since 2001, it has received 174 National Magazine Awards nominations and won 26 Golds and 29 Silvers (the third most during that time, after the Walrus and Toronto Life). It also holds the distinction, in the fall of 2005, of being the first glossy magazine in North America to publish on 100 per cent post-consumer recycled paper.