TIME cover does it again

The latest in a series of excellent illustrated covers. 

Coast to Coast newsstand distributor to be bought by Pattison's Comag group

Coast to Coast Newsstand Services Partnership (CTC) -- one of the best known distributors of Canadian and U.S. magazines in the Canadian market -- is to be bought by the Comag Marketing Group PLC, a Princeton, New Jersey-based retail magazine sales and marketing company effective January 1.  Comag is a subsidiary of The Jim Pattison Group of Vancouver, 

 “I’m disappointed that CTC will not be carrying on after January 1, 2019" [said Dan Shapiro, Managing Director of CTC a release published on Mastheadonline.com] "but am gratified that our clients will continue to receive expert quality service through CMGC. Continuous sales declines throughout our entire eco system put the sustainability of CTC in jeopardy.”

Glenn Morgan, President of CTC, will continue in his role after the acquisition, 

Coast to Coast is a partnership between Rogers Communications and a group of major Canadian magazine wholesalers. Originally owned by Maclean-Hunter, primarily to distribute its own magazines, CTC was purchased by Rogers Media in 1994 and in 2000, a majority interest was sold to three industry veterans, Glenn Morgan, Frank Auddino, and Scott Bullock. In 2005, majority interest in the company was purchased by a consortium of the major periodical wholesalers in Canada. 

Comag Marketing Group LLC, a retail sales and marketing company, provides single copy sales strategies and supply chain solutions for magazines worldwide. The company serves mass market, direct-to-retail, and specialty market channels.  Comag Marketing Group LLC was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. As of January 31, 2012, Comag Marketing Group LLC operates as a subsidiary of The Jim Pattison Group, Inc.

In 2013, Coast to Coast outsourced most of its back-office accounting to Comag to handle all billing and collection, print order and galley preparation as well as other administrative functions. 

St. Joseph buys beer event and will expand Toronto Beer Guide

St. Joseph Media has acquired the ownership of the 9-day Toronto Beer Week event. A posting on Canadian Beer News says St. Joseph will be expanding an existing annual program publication into the Toronto Beer Guide “a year-round magazine-style publication that includes relevant, evergreen content in addition to being a companion to the event.” 
year-round . 

The beer week festival will hold its 9th annual edition on September 14th to 22nd, 2018. The event was founded in 2010 by a group of local beer fans and has grown to include a variety of beer-themed events: pub crawls, beer dinners, tap takeovers, meet the brewers sessions, beer releases and associated food and cheese pairings. 

Ken Whyte buys Porcupine's Quill to add to his new non-fiction book publishing imprint

Ken Whyte, the former publisher of Maclean's and the National Post is launching his own book publishing firm The Sutherland House and has purchased the publishing assets of the Erin,Ontario-based The Porcupine's Quill. 

According to a story in the Toronto Star, the deal for The Porcupine's Quill is to close at the end of May and it will remain as an imprint of The Sutherland House, which  Whyte intends to focus on non-fiction (biography, memoir and history). 

The founders of The Porcupine's Quill, Tim and Elke Inkster, retain its main street premises and its printing equipment as well as the journal The Devil's Artisan.

Whyte said he didn’t get into digital media because “I want to make things and to me it’s a lot more appealing to make a tangible product, a physical product like a book or a magazine than it is to make a virtual one. I also have more confidence in the future of books than I do in the future of traditional magazine and newspaper models.”

Whyte's interest in non-fiction and biography is demonstrated by The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst, which was published in Canada in 2008 and the following year in the U.S. It was a finalist for the 2009 National Business Book Award, the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Charles Taylor Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for biography. It was also a Washington Post book of the year. His second book, a biography of Herbert Hoover, was published last year by Random House/Knopf.

Inovva acquires Halifax-based Oyster Group

The Oyster Group, a Halifax-based circulation management and fulfillment company, has been acquired by Inovva, which specializes in web-based data management tools for magazine subscriptions, newsletter recipients, contest entries and event attendees. Oyster Group and its founder Faith Drinnan have been serving magazines in Canada and the United States since 1979. 

Drinnan intends to retire soon and Jennifer Taylor, her vice-president, client services becomes director of accounts at Inovva. The company's main offices will remain in Halifax. 

"This is very exciting news," says Inovva president Brinda Luckoo in a release. "The Oyster Group has an excellent reputation in the publishing industry and we are very keen to bring their expertise to our clients. They are well known as a dedicated, hard‑working group of professionals who have been helping publishers build their paid subscriptions for some 25 years." 

"We spent quite some time looking for the right buyer," says Drinnan. "Inovva has the personnel, the skills and the vision to ensure ongoing growth for the business we started in 1992. The company shares our values and commitment to both clients and staff. Plus, they have the most extensive range of traditional and digital offerings in Canada."

This was the second such acquisition this year.  In January, the company purchased Publish2Profit, a Calgary-based technology company that offers online sales and accounting solutions specifically tailored to the needs of magazine and periodical publishers.

After 20 years, SkyNews magazine bought by Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) is buying the astronomy magazine Sky News,which for almost 20 years has been provided as a benefit to its members. 

SkyNews has been published by SkyNews Inc. since 1999 when the National Museum of Science and Technology, which launched it, sold it to editor Terence Dickinson and circulators Greg Keilty and Colleen Moloney. 

They describe it as "the only popular, English-language science magazine for adults published in Canada." It also publishes the website SkyNews.ca and a monthly e-newsletter. 

Keilty and Moloney are stepping down from their respective roles as publisher and associate publisher. Dickinson in planning to step down as editor next year, though he has agreed to remain as editor emeritus and continue to contribute his own column thereafter. 

"One of my distinct pleasures in the past two decades has been gathering an all-Canadian team of astronomy writers, photographers, illustrators, designers and editorial experts to steer a steady course for SkyNews," said Dickinson. "Our readers have supported us as the magazine has doubled in size since its founding. I am absolutely delighted that The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada will be moving into the driver's seat as we head into the next two decades."

 James Edgar, the Society’s National President said

“This is a monumental event, one that bodes well for our Society and for SkyNews,” said . “The acquisition of the magazine ensures that our long-standing relationship will continue far into the future, a relationship that we have seen increase in several dimensions over the past few years. This can only mean an improvement to member benefits, plus it provides a new way for us to grow our public outreach. We are most pleased that Terry Dickinson has agreed to remain with SkyNews as Editor Emeritus. His presence ensures that the flavour and thrust of SkyNews remains as a quality Canadian astronomy publication.”                             

Keilty said

“Launching a new magazine and finding the readers to support it is a gamble.... We were able to tend it and grow it and now it's 20 years old, already quite a long life for a magazine, and is now the only popular-level adult science magazine published in English Canada. Passing this treasure on to the RASC pretty well guarantees that SkyNews will celebrate a 40th anniversary as well.”

There were no financial details provided. Sky News's current circulation is about 25,000, published 6 times a year. Just under 5% of this is in the United States. Average single copy sales per issue in Canada total about 8,700.

The RASC also publishes a bi-monthly magazine called the Journal, an annual Observer's Handbook and Observer's Calendar, and a monthly e-letter called The Bulletin for members. 

Why Yellow Pages bought Vancouver and Western Living

The editor of BCBusiness magazine, Matt O'Grady, last week spoke with the president and CEO of Yellow Pages about the company's recent acquisition of  Vancouver magazine and Western Living. Here is an excerpt of Julien Billot's comments about why the titles were purchased and his expectations of what happens now.

Yellow Pages has been rather rapidly getting out of the print business—or repositioning itself as a digital-first company. Why did you decide to purchase Vancouver and Western Living magazines? 

Yellow Pages CEO Julien Billot

The thinking was: more content. That’s the play. What you have to understand is that we have Caroline Andrews* on our team, formerly of TC Media—and she knew these publications very well. The big play here is not about print; it’s about content. Take a look at my phone. Today, we had approval from Apple to launch our new app called YP Dine. All the content from Vancouver magazine and Western Living will help us to feed into this local app. And that’s really the play. We can feed a lot of content into our media platforms.  

But to generate that content, you don’t really need to have a print product anymore, do you? What is the future of print within the Yellow Pages family? 

Let’s forget about print and think about the different usages you can have. You have two types of usages from a digital media perspective. You have search, and you have discovery or serendipity. Print, for me, is more about serendipity. Our major apps are mainly about search. The two parts are very important because if I’m looking for something very precisely, I’m using the search. If I don’t know exactly what to search, and I want to know what’s in the neighbourhood, that’s a different kind of media. Longer term, we really see our evolution in these two types of media: search media and serendipity or more “flipping” type of media. Today it’s on print but tomorrow it could be a very different format—ebooks or emagazines. Some people still prefer a paper book or magazine, but for sure we want to give these magazines more digital opportunities. We are not coming in to shut down print.  

Any plans to buy other city or regional magazines? 

No. It was a content play and a good tactical opportunity, but we don’t have a plan to buy other magazines.

*[Caroline Andrews became vice-president and chief publishing officer of Yellow Pages last June after being vice-president and group publisher of all TC Media's English consumer magazines, in particular the two Vancouver-based magazines in the Western Media Group. Her intimate knowledge of their businesses doubtless facilitated interest and the negotiations to buy them.] 

Competition Bureau approves sale of TC Media consumer titles to the TVA Group

The Competition  Bureau has  approved the sale of Transcontinental Media's eastern Canadian consumer magazine portfolio (and various related assets) to the TVA Group. The bureau concluded that the transaction, announced in November, was unlikely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition.

"In reaching this conclusion, the Bureau also considered the general decline in readership of magazines, in part attributable to the increasing importance of the Internet as an alternative for readers," said the announcement. 

Related posts:

• Transcontinental sells all its eastern Canadian consumer magazines to TVA 

Transcontinental sells all its eastern Canadian consumer magazines to TVA

[This post has been updated] In what is unquestionably the largest change in Canadian magazine publishing in many years, Trancontinental Inc. has announced it is selling 15 consumer magazines based in Montreal and Toronto to Quebec's TVA Group for $55.5 million. It includes all associated websites and related platforms. Key to the arrangement is that TC Transcontinental Printing would retain the printing of all affected magazines through 2022 in an extended contract with TVA. 

The deal does not include the TC Media western properties such as Vancouver Magazine and Western Living. 

Magazines and digital properties changing ownership would include Canadian Living, Style at Home, Coup de pouce, Elle Canada, Elle Québec, Decormag,  Magazine, Magazine Véro, Fleurs plantes et Jardins, Quebec Green, Canadian Gardening, recettes.qc.ca,  and The Hockey News.  It means TVA assumes the 51% partnership share of Elle Canada and Elle Québec which it holds in partnership with Hearst Group. TVA Group and Bayard Group will each hold a 50% share in Publications Senior Inc., publisher of Le Bel Âge and Good Times magazines.

Subject to Competition Bureau approval, the change, which will have unknown effects on the jobs of 310 people. would see the titles of TC Media (English Canada's largest consumer magazine publisher) with TVA, which is the largest magazine publisher in Quebec. 

Francoise Olivier, the president and chief executive officer said the company is going to concentrate on local advertising, through its greatly expanded stable of more than 180 newspapers in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces.

"In the context of the highly competitive magazine industry that is experiencing a proliferation of platforms and generated content as well as migration of advertising revenue towards digital media, Transcontinental Inc. has decided to sell its consumer magazines in Montreal and Toronto to the TVA Group whose platforms will enable the continued evolution of these magazines," he said. 

"Today's agreement creates twofold value for Transcontinental Inc., In one stroke we have also improved the book of business for our printing sector."

Transcontinental Inc. which includes four divisions (TC Transcontinental, TC Media, TC Transcontinental Printing and TC Transcontinental Packaging) had revenues of $2.1 billion in 2013.  

TVA is the television and media arm of Quebecor Media. The company said in a release it expects annual revenues of $10 to $14 million from the newly acquired magazines. 

"Print media is facing growing competition from digital media and new technological platforms," noted Pierre Dion, president and CEO of Quebecor and Quebecor Media. "And bear in mind that the competition notably comes from increasingly powerful foreign players. In this landscape, print magazines, just like newspapers, need to be consolidated to ensure these traditional media survive and allow them to compete with digital media." 

"This acquisition is in line with the Corporation's strategy of investing in the production and distribution of high-quality, rich, diverse entertainment and news media content," said Julie Tremblay, president and CEO of Media Group and TVA Group. "We are therefore very pleased to acquire these strong brands, which are amongst the most popular magazine titles in Canada, and complementary to those of TVA Publications titles." 

"TVA Group has extensive experience in magazine publishing. This transaction will enable us to capture significant operational synergies and secure the segment's long-term profitability and viability. We anticipate that after these magazines are acquired they will contribute between $10 million and $14 million to operating earnings annually," concluded Julie Tremblay.

National Post buys English language papers -- including Toronto Sun -- from Quebecor

Postmedia Network has bought The Toronto Sun and the rest of Sun Media Inc.'s 175 English language newspapers, specialty publications and associated digital properties from Quebecor Media Inc. for $316 million. According to a story in the National Post, Postmedia's flagship, the properties include Sun newspapers in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton. 

The deal also includes the London Free Press and the free 24 Hours dailies in Toronto and Vancouver. Postmedia will pay $316 million in the deal, which includes real estate holdings worth approximately $50-60 million. The deal is subject to regulatory approval, including from the Competition Bureau. That is expected to take several months. The deal excludes Quebecor holdings in Quebec. 

“This acquisition brings together an impressive stable of brands that collectively create a stronger Canadian media platform that is better positioned to compete against foreign-based digital offerings and offers a greater range of choices to our readers,” said Paul Godfrey, President and Chief Executive Officer of Postmedia.

Renovation Contractor joins Homes Publishing Group

Renovation Contractor magazine is joining the Homes Publishing Group. Founder and editor-in-chief  of RC, Jim Caruk, says in a posting "part of the agreement was that we would continue to do things the way we've been doing since day one."
Homes Publishing Group (Homes for Sale Magazine Ltd.) concentrates on the home market with Homes magazine, Reno & Decor and Condo Life, Moving To magazines plus Active Life and Ontario Design as well as associated websites and show guides for three leading consumer shows and two building industry membership directories. 

Renovation Contractor publishes six issues annually, with a distribution of 33,000 copies per issue mailed directly to professional contractors and small and medium-sized home renovators across Canada. The magazine was established in 2011 by Caruk Media Group Inc. and has been a finalist for trade magazine of the year in the Kenneth R. Wilson Awards in 2013 and 2014. Caruk has been in the renovation business for 40 years and is well known for his HGTV series Real Renos and Builder Boss.

Time Warner considering $2.2 billion investment in Vice Media

Time Warner, which just shucked its Time Inc. magazine division, is in talks to make a major investment in Vice Media. One way the deal might go is for Time Warner to roll HLN, a cable news platform it owns, into Vice Media, in return for a half-interest in the company. The deal is said to be worth roughly $2.2 billion or about 50% more than Vice Media was worth just a year ago.

Other investors in Vice Media, which started as a music street paper in Montreal in 1994 and went on to become a worldwide power in youth-oriented video and other digital media, include 21st Century Fox, which owns about 5% and Raine, a New York-based merchant bank. The original Vice magazine now accounts for only 5% of the company's revenues. 

According to a story on Sky News (UK), 

Shane Smith, the company's Canadian co-founder and chief executive, has repeatedly referred to Vice as "the Time Warner of the street" but has denied any intention of surrendering outright control of the group. 

Vice operates some of Youtube's most popular channels and has content partnerships with a broad range of digital media providers, including Facebook and Twitter.Its digital channels now include The Creators' Project, Motherboard and Noisey, a music discovery platform. 

"I want us to be the next MTV, ESPN and CNN rolled into one - and everyone always rolls their eyes," Mr Smith told a newspaper last year.

Rogers Publishing acquired Canadian Health and Lifestyle magazine

Rogers Publishing has acquired Canadian Health and Lifestyle magazine and its companion website Healthand Lifestyle.ca. The super-digest quarterly consumer magazine, which was launched in 2004 and has a controlled distribution of 400,000 mainly through Rexall pharmacies, doctors offices and hospitals.

The five-person staff -- save for publisher Joe Viecili -- will now report to Angela Jones as publisher; she was most recently been associate publisher at Chatelaine and Châtelaine.

According to PMB, the magazines' 2 million readers are largely female (64%) and between the ages of 24 and 54.

Lorraine Hoefler, executive publisher at Rogers Publishing said in a release, “We know health is a strong and growing category that Canadian readers care about and on which advertisers are focused.”

Torstar buys a piece of Blue Ant, which bought a piece of Quarto, and so on...

Last summer, Blue Ant Media Inc. bought a 15% stake in Quarto Communications, the publishers of Cottage Life, Explore, Canadian Home Workshop and Outdoor Canada. It has an option to raise its stake to 25%. And almost immediately, Quarto plunged ahead with a television project carrying the Cottage Life brand.

Blue Ant is controlled by Michael MacMillan, the former head of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. and he is clearly on a roll building a media company. It recently entered into an agreement to buy High Fidelity TV, which in turn owns four premium HD channels: Oasis HD,  eqhd, radX, and HIFI HD. It also owns a majority stake in GlassBOX, which in turn owns Bite TV, Aux TV and the Travel + Escape channel. 

Now Torstar has bought a 25% stake in Blue Ant.  According to a story in Marketing, David Holland of Torstar said that the company viewed the investment as a strategic way to further diversify its media assets.

“We see the potential in Michael’s vision for a new kind of media company in Canada,” said Holland. 
So, by our math, Torstar nominally now owns 6.25% of Cottage Life et al. Ah, what a complicated web -- one that is typical of the kinds of convergence we will be seeing more of in 2012.

Canada Wide Media purchases Real Weddings magazine

Spring-Summer 2010

Real Weddings magazine and its companion website and directory, has been purchased by Canada Wide Media Limited from its founder Michael Alexander. The first issue of the biannual under new ownership will be spring 2012. It joins about 50 other titles published by Canada Wide, which does both consumer and contract published titles and, as the largest independent magazine publisher in Western Canada, has annual revenue in excess of $25 million.

"We are thrilled about this acquisition," stated Peter Legge, CEO and Chairman, Canada Wide Media Limited. "Real Weddings is a quality local magazine and a natural complement to our company. Real Weddings is the largest regional wedding magazine in B.C., and we are proud to add it to our stable of products and excited by the growth potential this brand presents."

Real Weddings specializes in wedding editorial for BC's lower mainland. Alexander said in the release:

"I am excited to see Real Weddings magazine become part of Canada Wide's broad portfolio of consumer magazines. The magazine has been my passion for the last 11 years and I have been delighted to produce a product that has been instrumental in inspiring top-notch wedding events and providing the best local advertising platform for businesses wanting to reach the lucrative wedding market.

Publishers of Cottage Life sell a share to television and digital startup Blue Ant Media

Quarto Communications, the publishers of Cottage Life, explore, Canadian Home Workshop and Outdoor Canada, has sold 15% of the company to Blue Ant Media Inc, a new company recently launched by Michael MacMillan, the former executive chairman of Alliance Atlantis. Blue Ant has the option to increase its stake to 24.5% within a year. The value of the investment was not released.

According to a joint release,Al Zikovitz will continue as CEO of Quarto, and he says the initiative will help push its brands further into television and digital media.

“We want to better serve our audience and our advertisers by expanding our reach to cover the broadest possible range of our consumers’ interests and needs,” he says.

Blue Ant Media recently announced it had reached an agreement to purchase controlling interest in GlassBOX Television, subject to CRTC approval and has developed a range of digital and broadcast properties including BITE TV, AUX TV and the Travel & Escape Channel.

“I am thrilled that Blue Ant is partnering with Cottage Life and Quarto’s other great brands and to be a part of growing these franchises to a whole new level," said MacMillan. "Al Zikovitz had developed a great company, a loyal following and consumer brands that have tremendous appeal to a broad cross section of the population.”

Meredith acquires Eating Well and online properties; launches recipe and coupon site

[This post has been updated]

A magazine publishing giant has expanded its footprint in the food category by gobbling up a successful mid-sized player and launching a new food-related website. Meredith Corp. has purchased the Vermont-based EatingWell Media Group, publishers of Eating Well magazine and its related online products. The takeover also coincides with the launch by Meredith of Recipe.com a sort of combination food and couponing site, according to a release from the company. It will feature a large number of well-known brands such as Betty Crocker, Campbell's, Fleischmann's, French's, Keebler, Kellogg's, Morningstar Farms, Pace Salsa & Picante, Pepperidge Farm, Prego, and Swanson.

Terms of the deal were not announced, but Meredith pointed to the fact that 60% of Eating Well's revenue comes from non-print sources: "digital publishing sources, licensing and custom marketing". It said that it plans to increase Eating Well's print circulation rate base from its current 350,000 to 500,000 by next year.

"Meredith already produces great food content across our brands, and food is our top advertising category," said Meredith chairman and CEO Steve Lacy. "In acquiring EatingWell and launching Recipe.com, we've added two anchor brands to serve the 75 million American women we engage every month, and the marketers that want to reach them."

Meredith publishes a range of women's lifestyle titles including More (which publishes a Canadian version in partnership with Transcontinental Media), Better Homes and Gardens, American Baby, Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents, Traditional Home, Fitness and Diabetic Living. The EatingWell website joins the Meredith Women's Network, which reaches 25 million unique monthly visitors and averages 275 million monthly page views.  Eating Well has a readership of 1.8 million and 2 million unique visitors a month to eatingwell.com.

As a result of the merger, the CEO of EatingWell Media Group, Thomas Witschi, becomes executive vice-president of the national media group and president of its lifestyle portfolio.
Eating Well has also been part of the iVillage Food network. iVillage recently launched a Canadian site in partnership with Rogers Media.
[Update: The story of Eating Well has a strong Canadian connection. Its founding editor in 1990 by James Lawrence (one of the founders of Harrowsmith and Equinox magazines and Camden House Publishing) backed by  Telemedia Communications of Toronto, which later sold controlling interest to multinational publisher Hachette Filippachi, but it was folded in 1999 because of weak ad sales. Lawrence and some partners revived it in 2002 as a quarterly and by 2005 had increased its circ to 300,000 bimonthly.  

In 2003 Lawrence (who is no longer with the magazine) wrote this about its misadventures in corporate publishing:

"Born in a small Vermont town, the mag was bought by Hachette Filipacchi after several years, then deep-sixed in 1999. A group of original founders brought it back in 2002, after watching their baby 'run by international publishing titans in New York who tended to hash out problems over expense account lunches at Le Cirque," he said, in an editor's note.  [h/t to Vermont Biz]

The irony, of course, is that it has now been swallowed again, by one of the biggest magazine publishing companies in the world.]

Torstar's Star Media Group buys startup digital beauty magazine The Kit

The Kit, a startup digital beauty and wellness magazine created by former St. Joseph Media staff has been purchased by Star Media Group (Toronto Star).

“We searched diligently for the best women’s lifestyle play for our audiences and advertisers,” Edward Greenspon, vice president of business development for Star Media Group and the Toronto Star, said in a release. “We liked what we saw in The Kit and are keen to get going right away in supporting it as a leading beauty authority on all platforms and extending it into the fashion space.”

The Kit, which was launched last fall, produces a content-rich digital magazine, including video, slide shows, and email newsletters.Giorgina Bigioni, president and publisher of The Kit (and former publisher of Fashion magazine) said the acquisition "will allow her team to dramatically accelerate plans and reach substantial new audiences.” There are also plans to add a print edition.

The deal is a letter of intent and still subject to negotiation and closing conditions. Star Media Group, whose holdings include the Toronto Star, Toronto.com, The Grid and joint ownership of Metro free daily newspapers, is a division of Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Torstar Corp. It has recently redesigned and relaunched both Toronto.com and The Grid (formerly Eye Weekly).

The Kit has published its 3rd issue (Spring) and relaunched an expanded and improved companion website.  The publication has 30,000 subscribers (it's free to sign up), running well ahead of its launch estimates according to Bigioni. 

The magazine has about 160,000 visits over the first two issues (somewhat less than the 200,000 they'd aimed for), an impressive 2.5 million total page views, 19,000 users of its free app, 1,500 Twitter followers and l 1,900 Facebook fans, according to its media kit.

Glacier Media buys a third of Rogers Publishing's b2b magazine properties

[This post has been updated]In what is a major rationalization of b2b publishing in Canada, Glacier Media Inc has announced the purchase of  15 trade magazines from Rogers Publishing Limited as well as associated digital properties, trade shows and databases that were key parts of its business and professional publishing group. This is about one-third of the Rogers business and professional titles (the company has 55 consumer and b2b titles and 45 digital properties) Publications such as Food in Canada, Le Bulletin des agriculteurs, Canadian Packaging and Emballages, HPAC and Meetings & Incentive Travel (including Incentiveworks, Canada''s largest trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and promotions industry) will be integrated into Glacier's Business Information Group. [Update: Other titles included are Canadian Plant  and  Canadian Plant West, Canadian Metalworking, Plastics in Canada,  Materials Management &Distribution, Purchasing  B2B, Design Engineering, Hardware Merchandising, Canadian  Contractor and PCC, On-Site, Canadian ManufacturingOnline and Frasers.com.

Since several of these titles are direct competitors with existing Glacier titles, it seems likely that over time there will be some rationalization. For example Glacier's Canadian Plastics and Plastics in Canada. ]

The transaction (for which terms have not been disclosed) is to close May 27.

A statement to staff from CEO Brian Segal said that the titles sold were no longer core to the business strategy of Rogers Publishing, which henceforth will be concentrating in the financial services, health and medical care sectors :

"In  reaching this agreement, the transition of our employees was a key  consideration. With this in mind, I am happy to confirm that all 63  individuals who operate these properties (who represent about 7% of  the total Publishing team) are being offered positions by Glacier.They will begin moving to their new offices in Toronto and Montreal  in the coming days...

"While transitions of this sort can be challenging, we are confident that Glacier understands the place many of these titles hold in terms of their legacy within the history of Canadian publishing, and their markets will be well-served in their new home. The leaders at Glacier also understand and appreciate the talents of their new  employees and are keen to work with them."

Glacier has been aggressively building a portfolio of print, electronic and online media; its BIG trade publishing group  is largely built upon titles acquired from Hollinger, many of which were direct competitors with Rogers titles. Among Glacier magazines are Business in Vancouver, Canadian Cattlemen, The Daily Oil Bulletin, The Northern Miner and New Technology Magazine. Glacier also is the largest publisher of farm titles, particularly The Western Producer. (As an aside, Glacier's name comes from its original bottled water business before it morphed into a major media player.)

This is a major shift for Rogers and should probably be viewed in light of major management changes at Rogers, including the announcement that CEO Brian Segal is leaving the company. One of the people said to be considered to replace him is John Milne, head of the business and professional group.  There has always been speculation that Rogers -- whose major emphasis is its cable, wireless and broadcasting business, might want to unload its print publications at the right price. Clearly what Glacier was offering for these 15 magazines and related digital properties would qualify. 

One wrinkle that will have to be ironed out is membership of the Rogers b2b titles in Magazines Canada. This week it was announced that the Canadian Business Press -- a shadow of its former self with the defection of Rogers' titles to Magazines Canada -was giving up being a membership organization and becoming a foundation principally concerned with supporting its annual Kenneth R. Wilson awards program. Glacier was one of the remaining mainstays of CBP who had not joined MC. Now, it owns 15 titles that do belong and the question is whether this will result in Glacier becoming more involved in the big tent industry association or pulling its newly acquired magazines out.

• Glacier press release
• CP wire story

Vice magazine sells minority share to finance its jets

We thought it was already supersonic. 

Vice magazine co-founder Shane Smith told the New York Times that it was time "to turn on the jets". Which is why the magazine raised "in the high eight figures" by selling a minority share to MTV founder Tom Freston, ad firm WPP and The Raine Group. 

The deal, according to the Times, was brokered by super-agent Ari Emanuel. The hipster culture magazine, which started out in 1994 as a homemade 'zine in Montreal, has become a global brand, distributed in three dozen countries. 

This is not the first time Vice has sold a piece of itself; previously it entered into a partnership with CNN and sold a small share to Viacom (which, at that time, was headed by Freston, later fired.)

Of his acquisition, Freston said:

"The company is bursting with creativity, and they have built an impressive array of smart, innovative and successful businesses all laser-focused on their audience."