Consumers do avoid TV ads, sure, but magazine ads are part of the experience

A  blog post from The New Yorker talks about the propensity of people to avoid ads, which is undoubtedly true on TV (what most commentators continue to mean when they refer to "media".) By being selective, the argument goes, and using tools such as TiVO and Netflix, consumers are placing a price on their attention. All of which is very interesting, but ignores the fact that, unlike on TV, advertising in magazines is actually part of the reading experience and the enjoyment. 

Magazine readers expect certain kinds of advertising in certain kinds of magazines and would find it weird were it not there (cruise lines in a travel magazine, packaged goods a women's service magazine, clothing ads, accessories and scents in fashion magazines). Rather than being a interruption or a distraction, it is part of the ecosystem. For an example, a 2007 study (available on the Magazines Canada website) says consumers are most receptive to magazine advertising of all media. Far from avoiding it, they expect it and like it. The same point was made in a recent  MC Connections presentation: 

BC's The Tyee has a lofty goal: to raise $100,000, start covering more national stories

On the eve of its 10th anniversary publishing, The Tyee is eyeing bigger and better things by asking its supporters for $100,000 to finance national coverage. (Contributors of $15 a month or more will receive a set of paper dolls of the national party leaders, just in time for the forthcoming federal election.) As with its BC coverage, much of the budget has to come from fundraising. This project is by far the largest ask the publication has made.

Until now, the online independent, daily news site has pretty much stuck to its coverage of BC issues and circumstances in a paywall-free environment, reporting national issues with a BC twist. Now it is proposing to expand its coverage (maintaining its BC content), establishing an Ottawa bureau and a pool of knowledgeable national commentators.  Editor David Beers explained why: 

"At a time when our country is undergoing fundamental changes, our national media platforms are in collapse. News rooms are shrinking. There's no money for longer, in-depth investigative reporting jobs. Good reporters are leaving the business, locked behind paywalls, or assigned to trivial stories. It seems some media are more concerned with shareholder profits than what matters to you."

Beers said that The Tyee's coverage is already national in scope and impact and there is a hunger among readers from beyond BC for more of its kind of coverage about their regions.

"We've never asked you for this much before. But this is kind of a big deal. Are we crazy? Maybe. But we think Canada needs more independent reporting. Now more than ever. And this is how much we think it's going to take to help make a dent."

Early comments about the idea have ranged from somewhat lukewarm to outright hostile, with supporters/readers either fearing the watering down of the BC regional perspective or the overwhelming of the site by viral comments.

PMB data shows 5-year average Canadian magazine readership steady at a million

The Print Measurement Bureau reports that over the past 5 years, average readership of 90 printed magazines in Canada has held steady at or slightly above 1 million. And since 2009 the average number of readers-per-copy, now at about 5.3, has actually increased by 10%. 

Perhaps of most interest is that readers are maintaining a consistent level of time spent with an issue (41 minutes) and their degree of interest in what they read (6.9 on a 10-point scale). 

The data released shows that the top 10 titles in terms of total readership were:

Readership Fall 2013  ('000s)
Reader's Digest	5,025
Canadian Living	3,817
Canadian Geographic	3,650
what's cooking	3,635
People	3,140
Chatelaine	3,007
Cineplex Magazine	2,888
CAA Magazine	2,647
FOOD & DRINK	2,369
Canadian Health & Lifestyle	2,346

And in terms of RPC (a measurement of efficiency in delivering audience):

Readers-per-copy Fall 2013 Canada's History 25.4 The Hockey News  23.0 Outdoor Canada 22.1 Dernière Heure 21.3 People 21.2 Canadian Geographic 20.1 Canadian Gardening 16.3 Le Lundi 14.3 Cottage Life 14.0 FASHION Magazine 13.3

The full topline readership data is available at the PMB website. 

Quote, unquote: A scarlet letter?

"A very small group of people shouldn't over-police native advertising."

-- Brent Poer, president of LiquidThread North America, quoted by Ad Age , following American Society of Magazine Editors updated guidelines which says sponsored stories should not use the same font or graphics ad editorial articles. Poer said that setting native ads apart from editorial content was akin to putting a scarlet A on the posts.

Nature Conservancy to launch new Land Lines blog November 5

The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) is launching a new blog called Land Lines on November 5, writing about a wide range of conservation topics. The NCC is Canada's largest national land conservation organization which, since 1962, has helped to protect more than 2.6 million acres (1 million hectares) across the country. 

The Land Lines editor is Christine Beevis Trickett, who is the manager of editorial services and was the editor of the bilingual print publication The Ark, a print newsletter still published by the NCC. Trickett was a board member of the Atlantic Magazines Association, and operates her own editing and writing service, based in Halifax Calgary. 

Mag world view: UBM up; more Cosmo Latinas; Angry Birds; Sluggish paper; online time

• UBM Revenue Up Slightly in Q3 (Folio:)
• Cosmopolitan for Latinas Increases Publication Frequency (Audience Development)
• The media has a duty to scrutinise the use of power | Harold Evans (Guardian)
• Penton reorganizes aviation group (Folio:)
• USPS Comes Up With Yet Another Way to Discourage Early Retirement (Dead Tree Edition)
• Egmont launches new Angry Birds magazine (FIPP)
• Paper industry steady, but sluggish (Folio:)
• We’re spending more and more time online. So what are we doing less of? (Nieman Journalism Lab)

Those A-List magazine titles are soaring

Number 1

Simon Dumenco, the media columnist for Advertising Age introduces the publication's annual A-List* with an interesting look back 10 years ago  in magazines (albeit with its focus firmly on the American market.) The A-List features the Top 10 glossy magazines that are considered to be excelling, or are "hot", based on Ad Age's research.

His retrospective notes that the hot cellphone in 2002 was a Nokia 6100. The hot launch was Budget Living, which ceased publication four years later. MySpace and Facebook didn't exist and Friendster had just launched.

As he points out, 10 years ago the industry was in a post-9/11 recessionary gloom and hadn't yet suffered the slump of 2006 and the financial meltdown of 2009-9. Publishers and commentators have tended to fixate on titles that closed, contributing to the conventional "print is dead" orthodoxy, he says. But the 2013 A-List is full of success stories and "best-ever" examples. The most successful have transformed themselves into gowth companies, "multimedia megabrands".

"What's perhaps most remarkable is not so much the phoenix-from-the-ashes-of-2008/2009 narrative -- because lots of business sectors have also bounced back from those dark days -- but how enduring many of our A-List magazines are. We tend to forget how ephemeral a lot of pure-play digital brands end up being, while overlooking the dynastic strength of iconic glossy brands. 

"Elle, for instance, is 28 years old (the U.S. edition, that is; the original French edition is 68). Fellow A-Lister New York magazine is 45. Esquire, also on the list, turns 80 this month. 

"What do you make of that, Friendster, MySpace, et al?"

*The A-List titles are:
10. Men's Fitness
9. W
8. Eating Well
7. New York
6. Women's Health
5. Elle
4. InStyle
3. VICE
2. Esquire
1. Bon Appetit

TC Media to handle all circulation marketing for Reader's Digest Canada

Reader's Digest Canada has struck an exclusive deal to have all of its circulation marketing services in this country handled by TC Media.

It means that effective today, TC Media will service the circulation marketing strategy and subscription marketing -- including acquisition, retention, reporting, audit and creative --  for all channels, including print, digital and the growing e-editions side. This includes five magazines, including Reader's Digest and its French-language equivalentSélection, Best Health, Our Canada and More of Our Canada as well as all associated branded websites such as readersdigest.ca, besthealthmag.ca, and plaisirssante.ca.

“Finding cost-effective and innovative solutions for our clients is a top priority at TC Media,” said Chris Purcell, vice president consumer marketing at TC Media, in a release. “We have extensive circulation  marketing expertise, and this deal enables us to extend these specific services to a leading publisher like Reader’s Digest.”

RDC retains full editorial control over all of its publications. A dedicated group at TC Media will work with Reader's Digest Canada's consumer marketing team. 

“Our expanded relationship with TC Transcontinental is the next important step in our strategy to grow our business in Canada,” said Philippe Cloutier, general manager of Reader’s Digest Canada. “Even more, this move will allow us to further focus our resources on publishing products and managing magazine brands people love to read.” 

Quote, unquote: The Canadian factor

"I think a lot of effective editors are outsiders and Canada's sort of halfway between Britain and America intellectually. We grew up with both cultures. I think it helps to be from somewhere else; you see America and New York with a fresh eye and appreciate it with a fresh eye."

-- Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter in an interview with Charlie Rose. Carter was flogging the book about the 100th anniversary of the magazine (a bit of a stretch since it wasn't published for 47 years,1936 until 1983). Carter's analogy of his job was that of a choirmaster: “You’re . . . trying to get the best out of everybody, and trying to get everybody to sing in unison.”

Mag world view: New Rodale prez; new paywall at SI; Burda Style in U.S.; Men's Fitness profits up 35%

• Scott Schulman named president of Rodale (FIPP)
• Snowden leaks: David Cameron urges committee to investigate Guardian (Guardian)
• The Camelot Years: In A World Gone Pixel, Print Is Breathing Life Into History Like No Other Medium Can (Mr. Magazine)
• Bonnier releases Media Map tech trend report (FIPP)
• On the 5th Birthday of Dead Tree Edition, It's Time To Reveal the Real D. Edward Tree (Dead Tree Edition)
• Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated tests new paywall (FIPP)
• Hearst Plans YouTube Channel For Teen Girls (Folio:)
• F+W Media launches BurdaStyle in USA (FIPP)
• Forbes BrandVoice Accounts for 20 Percent of Total Advertising Revenue (Folio:)
• Beyond Creative launches Madame Figaro Arabia (FIPP)
• Hanley Wood Lays Off 19 Staffers (Folio:)
• Men's Fitness publisher increases profits by 35% in 2012 (Guardian)

CSME mixer features email management

Apparently, Canadian editors may be bedevilled by out-of-control inboxes; so the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) is holding one of its periodic Toronto mixers on the evening of October 22. 

Speaker William Tully, a technical business analyst for Metroland Media Digital Commerce, will share the secrets to owning your inbox. Topics will be how to use folders and filters, deleting vs archiving, email etiquette and how to never lose a message or attachment. 

The event takes place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the CSI Annex, 720 Bathurst St. (south of Bloor), ING presentation room. $10 for members, $25 for non-members in advance ($15 and $30 at the door) including one drink ticket and hors d'oeuvres.

BPA and IMS collaborate on campaign monitoring process

BPA Worldwide, has partnered with Toronto-based Inquiry Management Systems to create a single point of access where media buyers can monitor online ad performance and verify placement. According to a story on Audience Development, the interface combines BPAs Ad ICompli (which lets buyers track online ad placements) and IMS's PoP platform,which helps buyers manage tearsheets.

"We believe a single point of access will bring greater efficiency to the campaign monitoring process," says Peter Black, BPA's senior vice president, business development.  

BPA's iCompli division was launched in the spring of 2012, expanding the auditing firm's services to third parties outside of the print channel. Its Ad Icompli service essentially verifies online ads are running where they're supposed to be and that they're compliant to a specific media plan. 

Hearst's Harper's Bazaar embracing branded content approach

Harper's Bazaar, the high-end fashion title from Hearst Corporation, has embraced "branded content" or "native advertising" or what you will in a major way with the launch of a new website next Monday in which advertisers can interleave their own products with editorial items in a new daily feature called #TheList. 

According to a New York Times story, Monday to Friday sponsors will be able to include their products as branded content and a link to their own site as well as running digital banner ads associated with #TheList. On weekends, they can include their products exclusively.

While the feature is the first time that Harper’s has used a branded content product, the announcement follows a broader effort by Hearst to create products for advertisers that, while labeled sponsored, resemble editorial content, a trend many publishers are turning to known as native advertising or branded content. 

In May, the company announced a series of native advertising products, including allowing advertisers to publish topical content about a developing story that can run alongside editorial content and pages where advertisers can post short videos, curate social media posts or sponsor photo galleries.

Hearst executives said that any sponsored content will be clearly labelled. Some of the products will also be available on ShopBazaar.com, which allows readers to buy products featured in the magazine. 

“Our attitude in this is that if we can create a really high-quality advertising experience that taps into our editorial team’s insights and into what resonates with readers, and do so in a way that it’s transparent, we think that is really powerful,” said Todd R. Haskell, the senior vice president and chief revenue officer for Hearst Magazines Digital Media. 

“We have an opportunity to create something from scratch that lets us develop one of these branded content experiences that is just so perfect for the reader and that lets us talk about the kinds of things that our readers love to interact with.”

Quote, unquote: Selling soft porn with groceries is sending the wrong signal

 “The point we are making is these lads mags are harmful by portraying women as dehumanised sex objects. They fuel attitudes that underpin violence against women and there is something about the normalisation of this objectification of women that we think is problematic. That you can buy these kinds of magazines in between the clothes and the groceries in Tesco and other supermarkets gives out a signal that this kind of attitude towards woman is normal and acceptable."

-- British Green MP Caroline Lucas, talking in a radio interview (quoted by Press Gazette) about the campaign to get Tesco's, the largest retailer in the country, to stop selling the so-called "lads mags". 

Quote, unquote: On whether York University should sue Toronto Life for libel

“I’d say it’s pretty troubling because it’s a large, essentially public body. The courts have held that governments like municipalities can’t sue for defamation, and I think there is a real question whether a university as a large public institution should be doing that.There is concern about whether it’s proper for them to try and muzzle criticism in this way.”

-- Paul Schabas, an expert in defamation law and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto who also represents the Toronto Star, quoted in a Star story Thursday Oct 10 about the libel notice that York University has served against Toronto Life magazine and freelance writer Katherine Laidlaw for an article about fear of sexual assault on the York campus. (We reported this story on the blog September 27. 

Spacing magazine to go retail in the spring, selling its city-style merchandise

Spacing magazine is shopping -- for a place to sell its burgeoning line of merchandise that relates to its city-building mission. It has plans to open a retail store in Toronto in the spring, though the location has yet to be decided.

Publisher Matt Blackett tells us they are open to traditional retail strips and are discussing the possibility with  developers about opening in the base of a new condo development. 

"Our plan is to sell our own merchandise (buttons, magnets, toques, etc) as well as many other Toronto-, neighbourhood-, and city-centric stuff like vintage & creative maps, photo prints, notebooks, clothing, bags, calendars, coasters, glass wear, jewelry (i.e., stuff made from bike parts), etc. We have discovered a lot of people making their own stuff that we can sell on consignment. We also plan to have a curated book section of 50 books all focused on urbanism. 4 books a month would move in & out each month. We plan to move the mag's office into the back of the store too — we're a magazine about life in the public realm, so it seems natural for us to be much more accessible to the public. 

"We deal with enough work with stores to realize that there is a niche for us to fill. And with the changing nature of the publishing world we feel it's only natural for us to explore other avenues of revenue." 

Read more »

Charles Oberdorf Memorial Award made to student Angie Mattison

Angie Mattison, flanked by Anya Oberdorf and Mechtild Hoppenrath

The Charles Oberdorf Memorial Award for excellence in magazine and web publishing was presented on Thursday evening at Ryerson University to Angie Mattison. Mattison is a part-time student nearing the completion of the magazine and web publishing certificate. The award was presented by Oberdorf's wife, Mechtild Hoppenrath, and his daughter, Anya Oberdorf. 

The annual $1,000 merit award was created following Oberdorf's death in September 2011 and the first such award was given out last year. Friends and family continue to contribute* to a fund in the memory of the longtime coordinator of the Chang School's magazine and web publishing program. Oberdorf was equally well-known as a writer, editor, teacher and passionate advocate for the magazine form. During his some 18 years teaching at Ryerson, he shared his professional skills with his students, and imbued them with his own love of story-telling and journalism.

*Contributions may still be made; the larger the endowment, the more awards may be given. Tax-receiptable donations may be made online at

* *Charles Oberdorf Memorial Award

For those who wish to contribute by cheque it may be mailed to:
Charles Oberdorf Memorial Award
c/o Maureen Sheridan, Associate Director of Development
The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education
Ryerson University
350 Victoria Street, CED 613
Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3
416 979-5184
sheridan@gwemail.ryerson.ca
[**If you have difficulty with the online link above, the following can be typed into your browser:  https://ruonline.ryerson.ca/ccon/new_gift.do?action=newGift&giving_page_id=23

*  *  *

Also given Thursday night as part of Leaders in Learning, the Chang School annual awards, was the Terri DeRose Memorial Award in Circulation Management  to magazine and web publishing student Nicole Edwards. The award was created by the Circulation Management Association of Canada (CMC) and honours Terri DeRose's significant contribution and leadership in circulation management.  

Spitzer stepping down as Up Here editor; succeeded by Matthew Mallon, onetime Vancouver editor

Aaron Spitzer is stepping down as editor of Up Here, the magazine of Canada's North, based in Yellowknife, and, as of the Jan/Feb issue of 2014, the new editor will be Matthew Mallon, at one time editor of Vancouver magazine.

Spitzer, who will continue as a contributing editor with the magazine, led it to be named

Spitzer

Canada’s 2010 Magazine of the Year by the National Magazine Awards Foundation. Spitzer who was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, has made a career in Arctic journalism, with stops along the way as  editor of the Tundra Drums, the newspaper serving the isolated Yup’ik Inuit region of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, as managing editor of Nunatsiaq News, then positions in the Yukon and Northwest Territories with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Lonely Planet travel guides before taking on Up Here. During his tenure, Up Here received 17 National Magazine Awards nominations, 33 Western Magazine Awards nominations and four awards from the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors.

Mallon, who lives in Yellowknife and has been working as a senior writer with the Up Here parent company Outcrop Communications, was been raised in Rankin Inlet, Yellowknife and Iqualuit. During his six years at Vancouver magazine (2000 - 2006), it was named the Western Magazine Award's Magazine of the Year three times, and received multiple National Magazine Awards. As a writer, he’s appeared in a wide range of publications, including the U.K.’s Independent on Sunday, the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun and the Calgary Herald. 

"Print will always be the mothership," says Zoomer EIC Suzanne Boyd

The changing retail landscape is one of the things that keeps Suzanne Boyd up at night. The editor in chief of Zoomer magazine was interviewed by Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni. There's so much more to read, react to and think about, she said and that she wishes there were more magazines out there serving the boomer market. She feels print will always be the "mothership" and smart editors will deliver content across many platforms.

Rare trench magazines from First World War compiled into searchable database

On the eve of the centenary of the start of the First World War  next year, a "library of lost voices" is being compiled by ProQuest, made up of more than 1,500 periodicals created by and for servicemen in the armed forces of Canada, the U.S., France, Australia, and New Zealand.

The majority of these trench journals and unit magazines -- many of them highly "unofficial" -- that have survived originate from units based on the Western Front in France; there are also magazines from units serving on the Eastern Front, in Gallipoli, Palestine, Egypt, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Britain and USA. They have been compiled from various collections, including those of the Imperial War Museums and the British Library. The result is a scanned, cover-to-cover resource of around 35,000 individual journal issues, amounting to roughly 500,000 pages.  The full-text, full image searchable database will be available for a fee (readers can register for a free trial.) Researchers should also be able to access them through public or university libraries who subscribe to ProQuest services.

The journals include infantry magazines from various regiments, such as the popular Canadian monthly The Dead Horse Corner Gazette, published by the 4th Battalion.  Others include The Howling Howitzer and The Kit-Bag, as well as magazines produced by prisoners of war in internment camps such as Prisoner's Pie and Knockaloe Lager-Zeitung and titles made in hospitals and aboard hospital ships such as The Iodine Chronicle and Happy Though Wounded.

[image: Canadian War Museum]

Print on paper plus retail has been very good to Monocle, says EIC Tyler Brûlé

Monocle magazine editor Tyler Brûlé recently said in a Bloomberg video interview that profitability for the company has been and continues to be in print and retail. 

"Month in, month out, where is the profitability for our business? It is on paper." 

He said that ad growth for the internationally distributed magazine's last four issues (80,000 paid-up subscribers) has been up about 50% compared with the same period a year ago and he is looking for an "extraordinary" 2013. And he said that retail,including the company-owned store in Toronto (others in New York, London, Hong Kong), will this year represent as much as 25% of the total turnover of Monocle's business.

The TORO story comes to an end as online version is being discontinued

The 10-year run of TORO magazine is coming to an end. Following four years as a glossy men's lifestyle title, distributed tucked inside the Globe and Mail, its print version was suspended in 2007. In 2008, was relaunched as a web-only publication. Now, the online version is being discontinued.

While it ran in print, the magazine had been highly regarded for its emphasis on sports, gear and women and a rather roguish, frat boy sense of humour. But it also published, under the editorship of Derek Finkle, a good deal of excellent long-form journalism that gained admiration, including 10 gold National Magazine awards and 5 silver out of 63 nominations. 

It was originally founded by Christopher Bratty, he of the developer family and William Morassutti took over in 2008 as editor in chief of the online-only version of the magazine, a position he maintained for three years. (He left in May 2011 and now lists himself as content editorial director at Venture Communications.) 

The website last posted a "TORO woman" profile in August and issued its last newsletter post in July. There continue to be occasional posts on the site, some as recently as a few days ago, but they are fewer and farther between. When we asked what was happening, we were told that the digital content created in the past five years could continue to appear as an online archive, but no new content would be created after this month. The magazine has closed its office.

"Our owner initially sought to launch TORO in its print form to showcase great Canadian talent, from the editors, writers and photographers who created the content to the subjects it covered," said Christina Butterfield. "We sought to the do the same online, introducing a strong video lineup to the mix and finding some talented new contributors when we launched in 2008. In the end, despite strong audience growth and increased awareness, we experienced sales declines that we couldn't overcome."

Canadian mags win at IRMA awards & Al Zikovitz given lifetime achievement award

Four Canadian member magazines won awards at the annual International Regional Magazine Association Awards (IRMA) conference, held this year in Baltimore, Md.  British Columbia magazine brought home five awards; a gold, two silvers, a bronze and an award of merit. Saltscapes magazine won two bronze and Yukon, North of Ordinary won an award of merit. 

The gold award for British Columbia was for a nature feature (“Visual deception,” Winter 2012), by Jude Isabella.

Cottage Life magazine was named magazine of the year over 40,000 circulation, the sixth time it has done so since 2000. And Al Zikovitz, the publisher of Cottage Life and who served as a president of the organization, received the Kenneth L. Gibbs award for lifetime achievement, which has only been awarded a few times in the history of IRMA and at the discretion of the directors. The award was established in 1988, “To honor a member publisher for extraordinary personal and professional accomplishment and achievement beyond excellence.” 

IRMA is made up of 32 general interest regional publications in the U.S. and Canada. 

The Hockey News beefs up website with new blog and live commentary

The Hockey News is refreshing its website, doubling its online content and expanding its social media presence to coincide with the start of the new hockey season. 

Post-to-Post is a new blog on the main site which will provide readers with more original editorial content and more immediate reactions to hockey news and events. 

“We are giving hockey fans all the news they have come to expect - columns, prospect rankings and rumor roundups that have always been the main pillars of our brand," said Jason Kay, editor-in-chief. "But, we now have expanded coverage with more impromptu analysis, game previews, slide shows and video highlights."

The editors will frequently take over the Twitter account @TheHockeyNews to provide live commentary on games with the #THNLive hashtag.  Advertisers are being told that placement with the new Post-to-Post package is expected to generate 300,000 impressions a week on the website. 

No renewal until 2023: Geist offers 9 years for $90

Issue now on stands

Geist magazine, in celebration of its 90th issue, is making a subscription offer of 9 years of the quarterly magazine for $90. A normal 1-year subscription is $21 in Canada, so the 9-year offer is $99 or 52% off for a total of 36 issues (not taking account of inflation). Makes it hard to choose between this and the offer of one year of Geist and The Walrus for $40. 

Astronaut finds himself making up for Maclean's

Apparently the flair for showmanship which astronaut Chris Hadfield showed when he was up on the International Space Station continues in the build up to the launch of his new book  An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. Maclean's magazine's cover this week has him made up to imitate David Bowie, whose song "Space Oddity" Hadfield sang and broadcast online, to huge acclaim. The cover story is by Maclean’s national correspondent Charlie Gillis. 

Photographer Christopher Wahl asked the now-retired spaceman to do it, and he went along. http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/10/02/behind-the-scenes-on-our-chris-hadfield-cover/

“He went full-bore with it. I explained we needed bare shoulders as opposed to the collared shirt he was wearing, so he happily took it off,” says Wahl, who ensured the lighting during the shoot also matched Bowie’s album perfectly. “He was fully participating—it was awesome. I was on a portrait high for a day and a half afterward.”

The issue includes the first of two exclusive excerpts from Hadfield's book, on sale Oct. 29. 

Mag world view: Mr. Men and Little Miss mag; Sensa-bility; global ad growth; Men's Health covers; Tesco launches biggest mag

• Immediate Media launches Mr. Men and Little Miss Magazine in the UK (FIPP)
• Publishers, AOL partner on subscription service (Audience Development)
• Lifestyle magazine Sensa launched in Estonia (FIPP)
• Marchesano Named Managing Director of ABM (Folio:)
• ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad expenditure growth in 2013 (FIPP)
• FSS Postage Rates Will Raise Issues for Cataloguers, Publications, Printers, and USPS (Dead Tree Edition)
• Men's Health covers - in pictures -- marks 200th issue of UK edition (Guardian)
• Viva Newsweek, Adios The Daily Beast? (Mr. Magazine)
• Time Out makes capital gains as free magazine (Media Week)
• Tesco launches UK's biggest magazine (Media Week)

Former Vancouver editor Gary Ross writes riveting story for UC Observer about wrongfully convicted man

A riveting story about a man wrongfully convicted,written by Gary Ross, the former editor-in-chief of Vancouver magazine,  has been published by the United Church Observer. The story is about a moving relationship between Ivan Henry, who spent 27 years in jail for sexual crimes he didn't commit and a labour lawyer and arbitrator called Joan McEwen who has striven for years to exonerate him and to get him compensation. (Although declared not guilty, this is not the same as being declared innocent.) 

One of the reasons Henry (who is no saint) was charged and convicted was that he was fingered by his own wife as a rapist because she was paid $1,000 for her information, money she used to support her drug addiction.

Canada's History magazine launches online Destinations portal

Canada's History magazine has launched a new online portal that provides information about historical sites, museums, national parks and galleries and various getaways across the country. When unveiling the new site called Destinations at the St. Boniface Museum on Tuesday, the editor-in-chief of Canada's History, Mark Reid said (as reported by Metro): 

"We want to reach out and help people love history by getting them to go out to places where history happened.Basically we’re there to help (historical sites) get their stories out.”

The director of the St. Boniface Museum said the new site would be very helpful for smaller historical sites that don't have a budget for cross-Canada promotion. Featured destinations on the site are the Royal BC Museum Canadian Museum of Civilization, but also the Cobalt Mining Museum, Fort Ingall and the Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum. The site allows visitors to log in, plan a trip, save it, print it and have it directed to their smartphone.