Circulation Management Association of Canada (CMC) merging with Magazines Canada

The Circulation Management Association of Canada (CMC) has merged with Magazines Canada. It is one more step in an ongoing consolidation of magazine industry associations. The merger was approved at the CMC's annual general meeting on Wednesday. 

Formed in 1981 principally to provide training and professional development among circulators, CMC decided to dissolve the association and throw in with the national trade association's mission advocating and serving the whole Canadian industry. (CMC and Mags Canada have a long history of partnering, such as co-presenting Magazine University MagNet, the annual industry conference.)

It follows on a similar merger earlier this year with Canadian Business Media, representing business-to-business publishers. 

Under this agreement, the longstanding partnership between the two organizations will be made permanent. Current CMC members will receive access to Magazines Canada’s professional development events and services, and can elect to join a renewed and empowered Circulation Marketing Advisory Committee which will advise the Board and staff on professional development (including the MagNet conference), awards programs, and research. Additionally, the CMC legacy will continue under Magazines Canada in the form of a maintained brand identity and web archive.

Scott Jamieson, the chair of the Magazines Canada board and director of engagement for Annex Business Media, said 

“This is a great move for the industry: it builds off Magazines Canada’s strong national marketing campaigns and the distribution service that we offer our members. Even more importantly, a merger with the CMC brings the voices and perspectives of important players along the supply-chain to the table—from suppliers and distribution all the way to retail—it makes a lot of sense for us to be working together.”

Amanda Beattie, President of the CMC  and Audience Marketing Manager for AZURE Magazine, said.

 “The CMC and Magazines Canada have worked together for many years in supporting the magazine marketing industry. This merger secures our ability to support the circulation industry at a national level for the years to come. Closer cooperation and one collective voice means a stronger, brighter future for magazine marketing professionals, and I look forward to working together.”

[It was back in February 2005, when this blog started, that I  wrote what now looks almost prescient, "One magazine organization" calling for the gathering together of disparate industry associations, speaking with one voice on behalf of magazines.]

Magazines Canada and Canadian Business Media are merging under Magazines Canada name

Canadian Business Media Association (CBMA) and Magazines Canada are merging under the Magazines Canada banner. The announcement was made Tuesday night in conjunction with the fourth annual Magazines Canada Business Media Leadership Summit now being held in King City, north of Toronto.

CBMA Chair John Kerr, President and CEO of Kerrwil Publications Limited, said: 

"With the marketplace and regulatory challenges faced by all magazine media publishers today, the CBMA Board agreed unanimously that bringing together one very strong association is absolutely vital at this juncture." 

Magazines Canada Chair Douglas Knight, President of St. Joseph Media, said: 

"We are delighted to welcome our CBMA colleagues to Magazines Canada. Working together strengthens our voice as we address common issues that affect the magazine industry as a whole. We will also be better positioned to more effectively leverage our resources to focus on the unique needs of distinct sectors of the industry, be they business, cultural, regional or consumer." 

The CBMA, formerly the Canadian Business Press (CBP), has a highly respected 96-year history of delivering services to B2B publishers and community stakeholders, including its flagship annual Kenneth R. Wilson Awards founded in 1954. The 2016 Kenneth R. Wilson Awards will be presented as usual in June, after which a larger Canadian business media advisory committee will undertake a review of the awards program and other B2B programming within Magazines Canada‘s long-term planning process, being managed by the new CEO Matthew Holmes.

Over the coming months, as both association boards go through a transition process more information will be released to their respective memberships. 

The creation of a "big tent" has been a long time coming. (In fact, one of the first posts on this blog, 10 years ago (egad) promoted the idea of industry associations working together as one.) 

CBP had for many years striven to stand apart, even in the face of Magazines Canada accepting business media into its membership and several larger publishers of trade and business media properties decamping to Magazines Canada, including Rogers Publishing and Annex Business Media. 

In May 2011, the CBP announced that by a unanimous decision of its members it was giving up being a member-driven organization in favour of becoming a foundation with the principal goal of running the KRW Awards. 

But then in 2015, the rebranded CBM announced it would once again be a membership-based trade organization, undertaking training, networking, webinars, tutorials and the awards program as well as launching a b2b blog. 

Now, it is throwing in with Magazines Canada to offer members a range of advocacy, professional development and other services to a combined membership.

Related posts:

• Canadian Business Media strikes partnership with U.S.-based ABM
• Canadian Business Media decides to get back into member services for b2b sector
• Canadian Business Press to become a foundation, concentrating on awards program
• Magazines Canada grows by 45 new member magazines, including two b2b groups
• Rogers b-to-b titles pull out of the Canadian Business Press
• Magazines Canada board recommends allowing trade magazines as members

American Business Media merges with Software and Information Industry Association

American Business Media (ABM) is merging with the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA). According to a story in Folio:, the merger was initiated by the SIIA but approved by the ABM board. ABM CEO Clark Pettit said that, over the long term, ABM would not have been financially sustainable.

“This was driven by our own strategic view of where the industry is going. Associations have to bring together the pieces of an industry needed to develop the business models of the future, and allow members to align with where their customers are going, not align the communities of the past.”

It means that business media members will now be mixed into a 1,000-member association that includes companies far removed from publishing, including the Stock Exchange of Thailand, TD Ameritrade, Kaplan Test Prep, Dell Software, Red Hat, the National Association of Electrical Distributors and Manufacturers Life Insurance.

ABM will remain as a unit within SIIA and for now the name is to be retained and the New York office kept open.

There is an interesting contrast between the way things turned out in Canada and the way they have turned out in the U.S.  Magazines Canada took a "big tent" approach,  opening up to  represent both consumer and business media. As a result much of the membership of the Canadian Business Press (CBP) decamped to join Magazines Canada.  As a result, CBP decided to relinquish its role as a member organization and restrict itself to running the annual Kenneth R. Wilson b2b magazine awards program. 

(The equivalent  to the Canadian solution in the U.S. would have been for ABM to form an alliance with the Association of Magazine Media (MPA). )