Lloyd Hodgkinson, who championed Canadian magazine publishing, dies at the age of 96

Time was, Maclean Hunter was the core of Canadian consumer and business to business magazine publishing. And presiding over that for close to 40 years was Lloyd Hodgkinson, who died on April 8 at the age of 96. As his death notice in the Globe and Mail reports, 

"During his career, he published and founded many of the country's most influential magazines including Chatelaine, Châtelaine, Miss Chatelaine/Flare, Saturday Night, Canadian Home Journal, Canadian Art, L'Actualité and his pride and joy, Maclean's, Canada's first newsweekly magazine....During his tenure as head of the Magazine Publishing division of Maclean Hunter, he also championed women's magazines: from Chatelaine with fabled Doris Anderson at the helm, to FLARE (formerly Miss Chatelaine), which he founded for the growing female workforce by appointing Donna Scott as publisher and Keitha Maclean as editor."

Perhaps his most signal accomplishment was the rebirth of Maclean's, one of Canada's oldest periodicals, repositioned to become a newsweekly under the editorship of Peter C. Newman. It's rare these days to find publishers who are both business leaders and nationalists, but Hodgkinson was one. 

He served as director and vice chair of the Audit Bureau of Circulation International board of directors (1968 to 1985), chairman of the Magazine Publishers Association of Canada, president of the Periodical Press Association. He retired as group vice-president of Maclean Hunter Limited in November 1985. The company that he had built was acquired by Rogers in 1994. 

BBC Worldwide sells off 34 magazine titles and all but exits the business

In a complicated deal that has taken many months to come to fruition, BBC Worldwide has sold off its portfolio of 34 magazine titles and is mostly exiting the magazine business. 

The deal with Exponent Private Equity LLP, is for £121m and involves taking over all the non-BBC-branded magazines (such as Radio Times) outright and publishing BBC-branded titles such as Top Gear under a contract publishing deal. There had been interest in the magazine properties from such companies as Bauer and Hearst, but the entanglement of many of the magazines with co-branded television programs seemed to make them shy away.

According to a story in the Guardian

Radio Times, which the BBC has published since 1923, will be among 11 sold outright along with a number of other titles deemed to be "less closely aligned to the BBC" such as Olive and Gardens Illustrated.

BBC programme-branded titles, such as Gardeners' World and BBC Wildlife, will be licensed to Exponent. While BBC Worldwide will not retain ownership of these 18 titles it will keep a "strong continuing editorial interest under licensing agreements".

The third category comprises four titles including Top Gear, Good Food and Lonely Planet which will be retained by BBC Worldwide but published by Exponent under a contract publishing agreement.

The deal also includes BBC's stake in Dovetail, a subscription fulfillment operation run jointly with Dennis Publishing and a distribution front end called Frontline, jointly run with Bauer Media and Haymarket Publishing. (The various interlocking arrangements may be one of the reasons that it took so long for BBC to make the complicated deal.)

Exponent publishes a number of parenting, motorcycling and outdoor magazines and runs the online media jobs service Gorkana; it was the former owner of the Times Educational Supplement. Richard Lenane, Exponent director, said: “Exponent invests exclusively in market-leading businesses which have strong growth potential and great people. We believe that BBC Magazines is such a business.”

At the same time as making its deal with Exponent, BBC Worldwide sold its 50% stake in Worldwide Media, an Indian firm which publishes editions of Hello, Top Gear and Lonely Planet, to the owners of the Times of India. It also is buying the 61% it does not own of Origin, a specialist publisher that publishes a dozen titles such as 220 Triathlon, Blonde Hair, Hair Ideas, Koi and Perfect Wedding. The 100% stake will then be transferred to Exponent.

Most BBC staff and operations will transfer to Exponent.

BBC Worldwide generated profits of £160m on sales of £1.1bn in the year to March.
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• BBC to explore selling stake in its magazine business
• BBC may sell off some of its magazines, partner on others

Giant swap, still subject to approval, sees Transcontinental take over former Quebecor World printing plants

Canada's largest printer, Transcontinental Inc. (which is also the country's largest publisher of consumer magazines) just got a whole lot bigger as it has conducted a huge swap with U.S.-based Quad/Graphics for the assets Q/G took over from the troubled former printing giant Worldcolor Press (formerly Quebecor World). Quad/Graphics retained only a Vancouver plant to service its U.S. Pacific Northwest clients.

Under terms of the swap Transcon sold three Mexican printing plants and some other assets to Quad/Graphics and bought 6 Canadian printing plants and a prepress firm. No value was announced for the deal itself but it would be worth tens of millions of dollars in property value alone. Quad/Graphics has said that Transcontinental takes over about US$75 million in pension and post-retirement obligation. The Canadian plants employ 1,500 people and the Mexican operations had 900. Three of the former Quebecor World plants are located in Ontario, two in Quebec, one in Alberta and one in Nova Scotia and the forecasted revenue for all of them was about US$310 million in revenues in 2011while revenues for the Mexican assetswere expected to be C$67 million. Francois Olivier, the CEO of Transcon says in a company release that the transactions will generate at least $40 million in earnings within a year or two of the deal closing. Olivier said that the print markets suffered from overcapacity and the takeover of the plants would allow Transcon to make better use of about $700 million in investments it has made recently.

Quad/Graphics bought the Canadian assets of Worldcolor Press Inc. (previously Quebecor World) in early 2010 for about $1.3 billion and at the time the CEO said the takeover would enhance its leadership position in the printing industry. At least in Canadian terms, that mantle now rests squarely on the shoulders of Transcontinental.  

The deal is subject to approval under the Canadian Competition Act and one of the questions that might be asked is whether approval would have been forthcoming had Transcon done a straight-ahead takeover offer for Worldcolor when it was in trouble and available. Whether this consolidation gives Transcontinental leverage that could significantly reduce competition in the industry, hence driving up print pricing, remains to be seen.

It seems highly likely, however,that there will be significant rationalization of plant, management and staffing. 

Related posts:

• Quad/Graphics shifting magazine printing from Edmonton to Aurora
• Quad/Graphics closure of 5 U.S. plants is fallout from takeover of Worldcolor (nee Quebecor World)
• Giant Quad/Graphics Inc. buys Montreal-based Worldcolor Press
• Worldcolor consolidates printing plants with loss of 150 jobs
• New logo for former Quebecor World magazine printer
• Courts approve Quebecor World reorganization; now the tax man has to say yes
• Donnelley gives up in bid to take over Quebecor World
• Quebecor World board rejects sweetened Donnelly offer 
• Printer vs. printer: R. R. Donnelly makes unsolicited bid for Quebecor World 
• Quebecor World seeks, and gets, bankruptcy protection

Hearst set to announce $900 million deal for Lagardere portfolio

Hearst Publishing is expected to announce as early as Monday that it is paying French publishing house Lagardere $900 million for its portfolio of international magazines, according to a story in the New York Post.

Lagardere, whose US unit Hachette Filipacchi publishes such titles as Elle, Woman’s Day and Car and Driver, and Hearst, publisher of Cosmopolitan and Esquire, are expected to announce the deal as early as Monday, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

The deal would make Hearst the clear front-runner in the international magazine business, and close the gap on US titan Time Inc.

Hearst and Lagardere announced on New Year’s Eve they had entered an exclusive negotiating period.

It would make Hearst the landlord, so to speak, for the licensing arrangement that Tanscontinental Media has to publish Elle Quebec and Elle Canada.

Frank (Atlantic) may be up for sale; owner wants time to devote to new publication

The Halifax-based Frank magazine is apparently in play as owner John Williams confirms in a story in The Chronicle Herald that he is interested in freeing up time to work on one of his other publishing ventures. He has been owner of the magazine for six years. "The publication is fine, it is just me who is ready for a change," said Williams. Beyond that, he was tight-lipped.

The "Atlantic Frank" has been published for 23 years, though its separately owned Ottawa version closed in 2008. It's not known what its circulation is or how it's doing; it sells no advertising. It sells for $3 a copy and subscriptions cost $60 a year.

This summer Williams started up Gaze, a local  publication featuring advertising from gay and gay-friendly businesses; it started as a monthly, but has moved to a quarterly schedule. Williams says he is keen to spend more time on the new title.

Related posts:

• David Bentley, co-founder of Frank magazine, feted for 50 years of feisty journalism
• New GLBT magazine, Gaze,to be launched in Atlantic Canada
• Frank magazine folds, saying "it is time to move on"

BBC may sell off some of its magazines, partner on others

BBC Worldwide is undertaking a shakeup of its multi-title magazine division and is considering selling Radio Times magazine. According to a story in the Times newspaper, BBC Worldwide is considering entering into a licensing arrangement or partnership with a rival publisher for many or all of its 50 titles, maintaining editorial control and the vaunted BBC standards while enabling the organization's portfolio to be more profitable. 

Worldwide’s magazines division made a profit of £11.5 million last year on sales of £182 million. Sources close to the company, whose titles include Top Gear, Doctor Who and Gardeners’ World, said that the tie-up would create a “mixed portfolio” in which the some magazines would be sold while others would be licensed to the new partner to publish.

The source said: “It can’t just be about flogging off the company because a lot of the magazines are BBC-branded and programme-branded and a huge part of their value is their relationship with the BBC. It’s not straightforward and it’s not going to be the same structure for all of them. There are some titles that could be sold, some parts need to remain close to the BBC.”

BBC is Britain's fourth biggest consumer magazine publisher, selling 85 million copies a year. According to a separate Times story, Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, last November ordered the magazine division to halt acquisitions. Cash raised from any sale or licensing of magazines could be used to help buy out Virgin Media from the joint venture UKTV, the story said.

Vice magazine hooks up with CNN

Vice magazine, which was born in 1994 as a Montreal zine and grew to become a multinational publishing and online phenomenon, has signed an agreement with the cable news network CNN to share content. According to a story in Marketing magazine, the first of what will be weekly updates was put up on the CNN.com/VBS website. Vice is now based in New York and had previously made partnerships with MTV and IFC.

"Most people reading this press release will think, ‘Vice and CNN, hmmm. That's an odd pair of bedfellows for you,' " said [company founder Shane]Smith, in a statement. "And you'd be right, the ‘Hipsters Bible' hooking up with the world's global news voice is a bit odd. But when we found ourselves evolving as a company and covering news stories around the world, there was truly no other option for a partner. CNN was our first and only choice. In a world of hyper-partisan op-ed ‘news,' CNN is the only one left with both credibility and reach."