Canadian titles do well at annual IRMA awards

[This post has been updated]Several Canadian magazines won recognition in the annual International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) awards, presented at association's annual conference, held this year in San Diego, California.

• Cottage Life won a gold award, 5 silver and 3 bronze awards plus one award of merit. 
• Saltscapes won a gold, a silver and 2 bronze awards.
• Avenue Calgary won a silver award.
• Yukon, North of Ordinary won two bronze awards.

Magazine of the year 29,999 circulation or less was Missouri Life; 30,000 or more was Down East: The Magazine of Maine.

Here are details of the Canadian winners by category:

Historic Feature 30,000 or more

Bronze – Saltscapes 

Chinese Canadians on the East Coast by Albert Lee, September 2014

Nature and Environment Feature

Bronze – Cottage Life

Up, Up, and Away by Jim Moodie, May 2014 

Art and Culture Feature

Gold – Saltscapes

The Magic of Realism by Suzanne Robicheau, September 2014 

Profiles

Silver – Cottage Life

John Gray Goes to the Cottage by Jim Sutherland, July 2014 

Head & Deck 

Silver – Cottage Life

Confessions of a Detailed Mind by Vanessa Farquharson, Fall 2014 

Essay

Bronze – Saltscapes
At the Bideau by Sara Jewell, March 2014 

Column

Silver – Cottage Life

In Like Zim by David Zimmer, 2014 

Photo Series 29,999 or less 

Bronze – Yukon, North of Ordinary

In the Land of Ice & Snow by Manu Keggenhoff, Winter 2014 

Portrait Series

Silver – Avenue Calgary

Cultural Movement by Jared Sych, June 2014 

Graphic

Silver – Cottage Life

Prepare to Meet Your Match by Victor Wong, Fall 2014

Illustration

Award of Merit – Cottage Life

Lake Awake by Byron Eggenschwiler, Spring 2014

Overall art direction, 30,000 or more

Silver – Cottage Life

Kim Zagar, 2014

Department 30,00 or more

Gold – Cottage Life

Cottage Feast by Martin Zibauer and Vicki Hornsby, 2014

Special focus

Bronze – Cottage Life

Entertaining Guests by Penny Caldwell and Kim Zagar, Summer 2014

Annual publication

Silver – Saltscapes

Food & Travel by Jim Gourlay, Joanie Veitch, and Graham Whiteman, March 2014
Cover 30,000 or more

Bronze – Cottage Life

Summer 2014 by Kim Zagar and Penny Caldwell

[Update]Cover 29,999 or less

Bronze – Yukon, North of Ordinary

Summer 2014 by Manu Keggenhoff, Tara McCarthy, and Peter Mather

Founded in 1960, IRMA exists to promote and support regional publishing generally and to encourage the free flow of information among its more than 30 member magazines. Canadian publishers have played a prominent role. 

New "hyperlocal" magazine launching in downtown Edmonton

A brand new quarterly magazine will land in central Edmonton starting December 3. The Central Edmonton News Society, in partnership with the Oliver and Downtown Edmonton community leagues, will be distributing 24,000 copies of the premiere issue of The Yards—a hyperlocal (and highly-anticipated) newsprint magazine. 

The downtown, and those two neighbourhoods in particular, have seen enormous growth in the past decade. The magazine's name is a loving tribute to the CN rail yards that ran through the downtown just a generation ago. 

"For the first time, our community leagues has the ability to reach every  single resident," says Oliver Community League president Jarrett Campbell, "and we're very excited with the community-building opportunities that brings."

The magazine is edited by National Magazine Awards winner Omar Mouallem and designed by Vikki Wiercinzki, who revamped Vue Weekly in 2010. It will focus on urban planning, development, lifestyle and cultural stories.

"Newspapers and newsrooms are shrinking, but there's still hunger for local news—especially in a city growing as steadily as Edmonton," says Mouallem. "Nowhere is this excitement and uncertainty more visible than in the city's core. So as a hyperlocal magazine we can home in on that growth, in on our backyards, and we can understand it and access it better than anyone else." 

U.S. city and regional titles continue to rely heavily on print revenue

City and regional magazines in the U.S. continue to depend primarily on print revenue, according to a survey by Folio: magazine. 

Print advertising is expected to account for 71% of revenue in 2013, compared with 76% for 2012, and with the remaining revenues largely coming from digital, events, custom publishing and paid subscriptions. 

Digital is up slightly to 5.2% and a mobile/tablet barely registers at 1.3%.

Respondents to the survey predominantly served smaller markets, with revenues of between $1 million and $2.9 milion projected for 2013. 

Saskatoon city mag Planet S celebrates 10 years of "democratic achievement"

Planet S's first cover

The Saskatoon-based bi-weekly city magazine Planet S would like you to know that it's 10 years old, but it goes farther, reporting that the 260 issues have resulted in 80,000 pages and 160 million words. In the current issue, the paper's founder Mitch Diamantopoulos (now associate professor of journalism and chair of the University of Regina school of journalism) says

"Planet S is a different kind of paper, in many ways. It’s built on a cutting-edge business innovation — co-operative worker ownership. It also embodies an important democratic achievement — as a locally rooted venture, it’s about reclaiming media power from distant and remote media conglomerates. And, it ushered in a new, independent frontier in city journalism — bringing alternative journalism, at last, to city readers."

Planet S was created in an alliance with Regina based prairie dog, a similar worker-owned cooperative.

"This city-paper isn’t perfect, and its best work lies ahead of it. But it brings great bunches of freshly plucked fun to the Bridge City every two weeks. It put the local arts and culture scene — long hidden by syndicated Hollywood entertainment — back on the city map. It has carved out a role for itself as a watchdog, not a lap dog. It has connected with those too often left out of public affairs, like young people. And it has demonstrated the awesome power of quality journalism and media diversity to expanding the range, depth and quality of debate about our shared future. It has changed the conversation that is Saskatoon for the better."

U.S. City and Regional Magazine Assoc. award winners

The City and Regional Magazine Association (CMRA) made its annual awards at its convention in Denver, Colorado. CRMA has only two Canadian members (Okanagan Life and Vancouver magazines), neither of which placed.

Free magazines are less valued & lack awareness, says MMR study

Was that a slight shiver that ran down the backs of the necks of controlled magazine publishers everywhere? Could be because they have seen a recent study commissioned by Emmis Communications, one of the largest publishers of city and regional magazines in the U.S. (Texas Monthly, Atlanta Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, Cincinnati Magazine).

The results of the admitedly self-serving study were recently reported to the 88-member City and Regional Magazine Association in the U.S and were published in an article in MediaDaily News. It says that consumer who receive unpaid subscriptions to upscale magazines are far less inclined to read them and -- when they do -- they value them less than magazines they pay for.

This has been an argument made for years by paid circ publishers, but there's never been much definitive to go by, except for the fact that controlled books tend to have lower readership in independent research like the Print Measurement Bureau.

The "affluent study" was carried out by Monroe Mendelsohn Research (MMR) and involved 2,250 randomly selected consumers in key markets. (We're not aware of -- but would be glad to hear about -- any similar study having been done in Canada, where controlled circulation is widely used and where newspaper-delivered magazines have proliferated.)

In Dallas, they found that only 4.5% of respondents had "never heard of" paid-circ Texas Monthly, while 80% were "unfamililar" with rival title Brilliant. Similar results were found in Atlanta and Los Angeles. (This, of course, may be yet another proof that branding helps people identify with a magazine, which is why eponymous city magazines or magazines with "Canadian" or "Toronto" in their name generally do better than those that do not).

Susie Love, executive vice president-director of sales and marketing at Emmis, says the company simply wanted to know what impact the incursion of free urban magazines were having on their market, and whether Emmis should also explore that approach. The answer, she says, was a definite "no."

"The reason we did it this was that we kept hearing from agencies and people from the [Magazine Publishers of America] making statements like, 'Does paid really matter?' We're built on paid circulation. And we felt if people are asking that question, we should find the answer."

Love says that following her presentation to the association, "eight or nine" other paid magazines are planning to conduct similar research in their markets.