News Group manager Mary Cosgrove chosen newsstand marketer of the year

Mary Cosgrove, National Account Manager of The News Group, has been named newsstand marketer of the year and will be recognized at the Canadian Newsstand Awards being held on Monday.

Cosgrove and friend

"Among her many accomplishments, Cosgrove has helped her client Shoppers Drug Mart become the number one magazine retailer in Canada," says the announcement by Masthead, which runs the awards. The award is sponsored by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The 2011 Canadian Newsstand Awards will be presented at the Spoke Club, 600 King Street West, Toronto at 5 p.m. Reception fee is $10 at the door (free to CMC members attending afternoon seminars presented by the Circulation Management Association of Canada (CMC).)

Winning magazines in each category receive $3,000 in credits towards programs at newsstands owned by LS Travel Retail (formerly HDS). Winners are selected based 50% on single copy sales results and 50% based on qualtitative factors. The 36 finalists are available online.

The CMC seminars begin at 2:45 at the same place: Martin McEwen of LMPI will talk about "Newsstand Globalization & Beyond"; and Earl Sazant of Promag Display will present "Point of Purchase 101". CMC members $49; non-members $69.

British MPS want to put a bag over the head of "lad mags"

The so-called "nanny state" is thriving, I see. According to a story in Press Gazette, a cross-party group of British MPs have demanded that magazines with "sexually graphic" front covers be concealed from view and have called for a cinema-style rating system for magazines. They apparently sweep into the category various kinds of "lad mags" and want such magazines not only put on the top shelf but concealed in a bag of some sort.

The MPs, including Tory former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and the Weald) and ex-Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell (Fife NE), said the review should consider whether pornographic magazines should be concealed in bags instead of displayed on the top shelf of newsagents (as they are in Canada).

In a Commons motion tabled by Labour's Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes), the MPs state that "politicians, retailers, publishers and distributors have a collective responsibility to protect children and young people from displays of sexually graphic material that they are not emotionally equipped to deal with".

In 2006 Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas presented a bill in Parliament arguing for legally-binding measures to keep sexually explicit magazines out of sight of children, but it died on the order paper. At the time, the Periodical Publishers Association, the British magazine trade group, said the guidelines in place were quite stringent enough.

"Magazine publishers and retailers believe the resultant code is strengthened, and its voluntary nature is far more effective and flexible than any statutory regulation, given that standards of taste and decency are constantly changing," the PPA said in its letter to MPs.

"Ultimately it is the retailers' responsibility to sell products, and to use their discretion and judgment as they see fit to display and sell those products, including magazines."

Canadian Newsstand Awards to be announed October 7 at CMC reception

The winners of the eighth annual Canadian Newsstand Awards/Grand prix d’excellence en kiosque will be announced on Oct. 7 as part of the annual social of the Circulation Management Association of Canada (CMC). The reception will be held at Spice Route located at 499 King Street West, Toronto, beginning at 5 p.m. and the awards presentation is at 6 p.m. CMC members are free; all others $10 at the door.

Finalists (36) in all categories.