Owlkids and NSERC partner to present inaugural National Science Reading Day

As part of Science Literacy Week, Owlkids, a division of Bayard Canada, publisher of chickaDEE and OWL magazines has partnered with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to launch the inaugural National Science Reading Day on September 20, 2017.

Young Canadians ages 6 to 17 and their classrooms are invited to devote a period of the day between September 19 and 21 to science readings, as well as to enter a Canada-wide contest celebrating National Science Reading Day. There are over $3,000 in prizes to be won, including four classroom prizes and five individual prizes consisting of magazines and books from publishers Owlkids, Simon & Schuster Canada, Nimbus Publishing, and DK Books.

"By reading science articles, books, comics, or science fiction, children discover the endless possibilities of science. These readers will one day make new discoveries, build new technologies, and solve world problems," shares Owlkids Publisher Angela Keenlyside.

National Science Reading Day supports the mandate of both Owlkids and the NSERC to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to children and youth.

"Science books have the unique power to enlighten and captivate in equal measure kids of all ages," says Jesse Hildebrand, founder of Science Literacy Week. "They reveal the amazing discoveries and insights gained from great research and exploration done throughout all of history, and showcase that the best stories are true."

For full contest information, please visit owlkids.com/sciencereadingday.
For the French-language contest, visit lesdebrouillards.com/jelislascience

Rogers Media selling magazine content to Postmedia papers for monthly special section

Rogers Media has struck a partnership deal with the Post Media Network to supply a monthly selection of content from its magazines for a special section called Life by Design. 

The content will be drawn from well-known Rogers’ magazine titles including Chatelaine, Flare, Today’s Parent, and MoneySense. The special section will be carried in print and in the ePaper editions of 10 papers, including Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, London Free Press, Windsor Star, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette (starting today) and in the National Post starting September 12.

“We are committed to bringing great content to our readers and this thoughtfully curated section from the lifestyle experts at Rogers fits our readers’ interests in areas including parenting, design, and financial planning,” said Gerry Nott, senior vice president content and senior vice president National Post in a release.

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.

Editors' Association of Canada allies with American Copy Editors Society

The Editors' Association of Canada (EAC) has formed an international alliance with The American Copy Editors Society (ACES) to provide each other's training and professional development programs at a discounted rate, including the forthcoming EAC annual conference in Toronto June 6 - 8.

"EAC is excited to expand our members' networking and professional development opportunities in partnering with ACES," said Carolyn L Burke, executive director of EAC. EAC promotes professional editing as key in producing effective communication and helps maintain high editing and publishing standards in Canada, with 1,500 members working in the corporate, technical, government, non-profit and publishing sectors. "Learning side-by-side with ACES members online and in person will advance career opportunities for members of both organizations."

EAC was founded in 1979 and has about 1,500 members; ACES was founded in 1997 and has a membership of approximately 1,000. ACES is offering one of its editing bootcamps in Montreal on August 5. Like EAC, it has regional chapters and an annual national conference -- the next one being in March 2015 in Pittsburgh. Similar to the arrangement with EAC, ACES has made alliances with the Society for News Design and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Transcon's The Hockey News strikes content-sharing deal with Yahoo! Canada Sports

A content-sharing deal has been struck between The Hockey News (Transcontinental Media) and Yahoo!, Canada's largest sports site. The result, according to a release, will be cross-posting of The Hockey News content on Yahoo! Canada Sports and Yahoo!'s hockey coverage in the magazine.

"We are very excited for this partnership," explained Caroline Andrews, group publisher of The Hockey News. "Marrying these two brands ― Yahoo!, the number one sports site in Canada,2 and an iconic brand like The Hockey News — ultimately results in a win-win situation for our readers by allowing us to deliver the most comprehensive hockey coverage in North America."

The Hockey News will be carrying material from a leading Yahoo! Canada Sports hockey blogger. Greg Wyshynski (creator and editor of "Puck Daddy") as well as Same McCaig (NHL editor for Yahoo! Sports) and Yahoo! writers Nicholas Cotsonika, Sunaya Sapurji and Neate Sager.

Transcontinental Media signs up to rep About.com and other sites

Transcontinental Media is to be the exclusive Canadian sales arm for About.com and various sister sites including CalorieCount.com and Netplaces.com, all owned by The New York Times Company. The sites will be added to the digital ad inventory that Transcon is able to offer, adding about 5.8 million unique Canadian visitors monthly (based on May 2011 Comscore data).

"We are proud to have become About.com's exclusive representation firm in the Canadian market" said Andrew Osmak, vice president business development for the new media and digital solutions group at Transcontinental Media in a release. "The combined power of trusted expert content and user-centric sites is what makes About.com an ideal environment for Canadian marketers to successfully engage consumers online. We are pleased to grow our presence in digital advertising representation with such premium brands and extend these new opportunities to our business collaborators".

Marc Goldberg, senior vice president of business development at About.com added "Transcontinental has an impressive footprint and extensive sale expertise in Canada. The solid relationships they have built over the years with Canadian marketers and their strength in multiplatform sales played a key part in our decision to give them full rights to our advertising inventory. We look forward to innovative, exciting executions through integrated marketing campaigns for Canadian advertisers, helping them connect with consumers at the moment of need."

Recently, a representation partnership was signed with Ziff Davis. Transcon now reaches 11.3 million unique visitors per month in Canada through more than 1,000 websites, including its own brands such as ELLECanada.com, CanadianLiving.com and TheHockeyNews.com bringing its global reach to almost 1 in 2 Canadian Internet users.

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.”

Toronto Star to publish Toronto edition of U.S. satirical pub The Onion

The Toronto Star has cut a deal to publish a Toronto edition of The Onion, the U.S. satirical weekly, starting this fall. The deal includes a non-satirical entertainment section offshoot the A.V. Club. It does not involve The Onion's online business in Canada.

The Onion has been shopping around the franchises of its paper for some time, looking for partners who wanted to take on responsibility for ad sales, distribution and administration of the free, city-specific street papers while leaving creation of editorial strictly in hands of Onion's management. This apparently suits the Toronto Star fine and it is therefore the first time that a print edition of The Onion has been distributed outside of the U.S. 

The Toronto edition would include some local content, though it does not typically accept freelance contributions.

The Onion now had 14 print editions, including New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver/Boulder, Philadelphia and Madison, Wisconsin (where it was launched in 1988). The paper has been launched and folded for lack of advertising support in at least two other markets, including  Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the past couple of years it has struck very similar partnerships with mainstream papers: The Denver Post, Austin American-Statesman, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Wisconsin State Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"The Toronto Star is pleased to enter into this agreement with The Onion," said John Cruickshank, publisher of the Star and president of Star Media Group, in a release. "It is an agreement that benefits both companies and provides the Star's business-related teams with another publication to offer to audiences in the Greater Toronto Area."

"Toronto has long been one of the Top-10 cities for The Onion's online audience," said Steve Hannah, president and CEO of Onion, Inc. "I think it's the perfect place for The Onion and A.V. Club to make their first foray outside the United States. Toronto has a tradition of great comedy as well as being a really smart, cosmopolitan city that has a natural audience for our pop culture coverage as well."

Recently The Star bought the startup digital beauty and wellness magazine The Kit, relaunched its street paper Eye Weekly as The Grid  and redesigned and relaunched Toronto.com.

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."

Reader's Digest to provide travel and lifestyle content to MSN.ca

Reader's Digest has partnered with MSN.ca to provide it with English and French content.

"This deal represents a natural extension of our commitment to content excellence online." said Yann Paquet, vice-president, digital media and strategic partnerships at RD. "And although we are still in the early stages of this new partnership, the results have been impressive! We are engaging audiences with our trusted content and they are spending, on average, over five minutes and viewing nine pages per visit."

MSN.ca will receive a selection of lifestyle and travel content from Sélection.ca and RD.ca. 

Food magazine partners with hotel chain in package deal

This is turning into an informal series -- looking at the kinds of creative brand extensions and partnerships that print magazine publishers are entering into. This time, courtesy of a story in Ad Age, we have a partnership between a U.S. food magazine and a boutique hotel chain.

Cooking Light magazine has formed a partnership with Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants capitalizing on a common emphasis on health and wellness. The deal includes discounted room rates for Cooking Light readers and Kimpton venues for Cooking Light "Supper Club" events, but could expand to areas such as integrating Cooking Light advertisers into the hotels' amenity packages.

The trick seems to be finding the right fit. "Kimpton and Cooking Light are both committed to healthy and well-balanced living," said Niki Leondakis, COO of Kimpton. The hotel chain also has a higher percentage of female guests than the industry average, she added; nearly 84% of Cooking Light's readers are women, according to the latest Mediamark Research report.

It's not altruism on either side, of course. Cooking Light is trying to push back against a 14.4% drop in ad pages in the first half of this year. It's ABC measured average paid circulation has increased, however, by 5.2% to 1.8 million.