Globe and Mail ending print distribution in Atlantic Provinces

The print edition of the Globe and Mail will soon no longer be distributed in the Atlantic provinces, according to a story in J-source. Print distribution will end in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick on Nov. 30.The Globe had stopped regional print distribution in 2013 in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Globe publisher and CEO Phillip Crawley said that the change will save the Globe about $1 million annually. He attributed the change to the increasing use of digital access which is what is being offered to Globe subscribers as their main alternative to print home delivery. 

“Clearly we make a judgment on how many subscribers we’ve got in a particular region, what cost that is, and we’ll carry on doing that,” [said Crawley].

U.S. print magazine readership said to be holding steady, says study

According to a new survey, 70% of adults in the U.S. read a print magazine in the last 30 days and 51% at least two. The American Magazine Reader Study & Handbook by Mequoda found that the figures were essentially the same as the same study last year.

"The findings seem to indicate that digital magazines — in the study, defined as "magazine content distributed via electronic means" — still have work to do to catch up to their print counterparts; 41 percent of respondents reported having read at least one digital magazine, but that's up from 37 percent a year ago," said a report of the results in Folio:.

"While not explicitly addressed in the study, there is certainly significant overlap between magazine brands' print and digital audiences, and the findings lend credence to the common industry maxim that publishers should attempt to reach consumers across any medium available to them."

"Not dead, just transformed"; Ricepaper mag discontinues print edition

Ricepaper magazine has discontinued its print edition after 20 years of publication. The Vancouver-based magazine focuses on Asian-Canadian literature and will continue to do so, only online. The publication began as a newsletter for the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop (ACWW) and has published prominent Asian-Canadian writers such as Wayson Choy, Kid Koala and David Suzuki.

“We’re not dead, We’re just transformed,” founder Jim Wong-Chu told The Georgia Straight. “We’ve been around 20 years.That’s a long legacy. We’re transitioning online, we have a whole group of editors working on the online thing, and in two to three years, they’ll see if the switch will focus on that medium.”

Wong-Chu attributed the decision in part to competition from other platforms for attention and a lack of funding.

“A lot of [funding] was disappearing because you were dealing with the Harper era and they’re cutting, cutting, and cutting. $20,000 disappeared this year—a large component of what keeps the magazine running,

“We spend 60 percent of our time trying to fund-raise and write grants just to keep it afloat, which is way off-balance, as opposed to serving the community; you can only put in so much content.

“We decided that it was not cost-effective and we didn’t want to get to the point that we were pushed out,” Wong-Chu says. “So we decided to get out before we were pushed out.”

The online version will have video interviews, podcasts and even an ACWW archive. 

[Updated]Penthouse [NOT] discontinuing print edition

[This post has been updated] Penthouse magazine, the raunchier cousin of Playboy, has decided to stop print publishing and provide its content only in digital format.

"Reimagined for the preferred consumption of content today by consumers, the digital version of Penthouse magazine will combine and convert everything readers know and love about the print magazine experience to the power of a digital experience," said FriendFinder Networks in a statement reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Men's or "lad mags" have found it almost impossible to compete with the adult content that can be found free online. Playboy, for instance, recently said it was discontinuing full nudity since anyone with a laptop could find more on the internet.  

The move to digital means the closing of Penthouse's New York offices (moving to Los Angeles, hq of the FriendFinder Networks). 

[Update: Penthouse says now that it is NOT discontinuing its print edition and that its announcement about the digital edition was misunderstood. 

"To answer what was picked up in the press, obviously the mainstream press doesn't read down to the bottom of press releases," said managing director Kelly Holland. "We never suggested that we were stopping Penthouse's print publication."]

Hearst mag sites' unique visitors up 50% in 2015

Hearst Magazines saw a 50% increase in digital traffic in 2015, to reach an all-time high of 163 million unique visitors, according to a story in AdAge's FishbowlNY. These include

• Esquire.com with 15 million uniques.
• MarieClaire.com a record with 8.4 million uniques, a 179 percent increase since December 2014.
• PopularMechanics.com 8.3 million uniques, marking its fourth straight month of increases.
• RedbookMag.com a record with 7 million uniques.

Fresh Juice online site closed down by TC Media

[click to enlarge]

TC Media, has more or less dispensed with consumer magazines by the sale of its properties to Quebecor's TVA Group. Before that, however, when the print version of the partnership with Loblaw, launched in 2012, was shut down in February 2014, an official statement said that the enterprise would continue online. Apparently not forever. The site has now been closed and visitors are redirected to the website CanadianLiving.com (one of the magazines now owned by Quebecor.) 

[h/t Denise Macharechek]

La Presse to cease weekday print publishing

One of French Canada's most  prominent newspapers, La Presse, is ceasing weekday publication, effective January 1. A hard copy version will now only be available weekly, on Saturdays, and readers will otherwise have to rely on its free tablet app La Presse+. 

"Thirty months after its launch, La Presse+ is now more successful than the print version of La Presse after 131 years of existence," president and editor Crevier said in a news release.

La Presse+ currently reaches 460,000 people a week. 

Disruptive forces besetting magazine media

Magazine media are being pummelled by a variety of forces, including programmatic advertising, the advance of mobile and content marketing, according to a report on Folio:. There is a massive shift in revenue to businesses such as Facebook and Google (those two total $78 billion in ad revenue in 2014) which, combined is more than the newspaper and magazine industries. The Folio: article drops in on 12 leaders of the industry, talking about their priorities and concerns. 

[click on graph to enlarge]

The Kit beauty and fashion site launches weekly pop-up mag called The Kit Compact

The Kit, Torstar's beauty and fashion site, has step by step been building up a formidable array of print, tablet and online ways to reach readers, to become what it calls "Canada's 360-degree beauty and style leader". 

First (even before the Star bought it) it was a digital beauty magazine. Then it upgraded its website as a central hub, spread into fashion, created a new interactive app for tablets and smartphones and launched a weekly paper feature that is distributed in select copies of the Toronto Star and in papers in Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver as well as a French, south Asian and Chinese versions. 

Now it has launched a week pop-up magazine called The Kit Compact, distributed free in Toronto and on thekit.ca. All of which is available with The Star's weekly tablet edition that is distributed every Thursday. The pop-up is described this way:

"Smart, cool, a little cheeky, a lot thoughtful, The Kit Compact is plugged into what’s new in fashion, beauty, celebrity and pop culture. It encourages readers to share its content via aspirational photo shoots, cutting-edge trend features and highly curated city-specific shopping lists."

Motor Trend turns popular video series into a print magazine

We have some examples of web-only publications opting to augment themselves with print magazines or annuals. Now, a successful print magazine, Motor Trend, is turning its success with a YouTube channel into a new quarterly print magazine called Roadkill, based on one of its most popular video series. The videos claim more than 3.3 million subscribers and 880 million page views. 

As reported on Tubefilter, the magazine will show off everything from classic hot rods to broken down jalopies to top-of-the-line luxury cars. Scott Dickey of Motor Trend described Roadkill as “guys behaving badly with cars.” Commenters on Roadkill’s YouTube videos have alternatively termed it “Top Gear America done right.”

"The Roadkill magazine [which launches in September] will share the web series’ young, fresh attitude, and the hope is that Millennial consumers will be willing to pay $9.99 per issue to pick it up. “We don’t think print is a dying business,” Dickey told WSJ. “We do make a bunch of money in print. And with millennials, they’re not opposed to print. They just didn’t grow up with it.” "

Metro's digital city-specific ventures being shut down as Torstar retrenches

Torstar's Star Media Group has discontinued all of its digital-only city editions of Metro, the free newspaper, cut 9 jobs and moved all of Metro's operations into Torstar's Toronto headquarters, according to a Canadian Press story. 

The cities in which digital editions had offered some local content each day, along with the national  included Victoria, Saskatoon, Regina, London, Windsor, Hamilton and Kitchener. The company curtly said that the decision was "based on results to date", meaning that the experiment in building audience and some local advertising revenue has been a disappointment. 

Star Media had shut down print versions of the freepaper in Regina, Saskatoon and London last July. It says it will continue to publish news stories online in the seven cities where it still distributes print editions: Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. 

Magazines win big at Canadian Online Publishing Awards

Below are the magazine-related winners in the Canadian Online Publishing Awards (COPA), given out on Thursday night in Toronto. 

See the full list of finalists and winners. 

Red division (including consumer magazines)

Best media web site 

• MoneySense (Gold)
• Canadian Living (Silver)

Best corporate website

• NGC Magazine (Gold)

Best website design

• Thewalrus.ca (Gold)
• Parentdish Canada (Silver

Best news coverage

• Torontoist (Gold)
• Fashionmagazine.com (Silver)

Best blog or column

• YummyMummyClub.ca (Gold)
• tuja wellness (Silver)

Best article or series

• The Huffington Post Canada Living (Gold)
• Toronto Life (Silver)

Best infographic

• styleathome.com (Gold)
• Canadian Family (Silver)

Best interactive story

• Toronto Life (Gold)
• Canadian Living (Silver)

Best use of social media

• styleathome.com (Gold)
• thewalrus.ca (Silver)

Best email newsletter design and engagement

• Weddingbells (Gold)
• Canadian Family (Silver)

Best digital publication for desktop and tablet

• Cottage Life (Gold)
• The Hockey News (Silver)

Best mobile solution

• Toronto Life -- Mobile (Gold)
• Fashion Magazine -- Mobile (Silver)

Best online campaign

• Toronto Life -- Evolve Fitness (Gold)

Read more »

Corporate Knights mag relaunches website to feature daily sustainability news

Corporate Knights magazine is plunging into daily coverage of sustainability with the relaunch of its website corporateknights.com. The revitalized site will carry a range of stories and viewpoints about clean technology, low-carbon transportation, smart cities, responsible mining, social enterprise and sustainability in the workplace. 

"When Corporate Knights magazine was launched 12 years ago there was limited awareness of the importance of sustainability and its relationship to business success and economic growth, so it made sense at the time to be a quarterly publication," said editor-in-chief Tyler Hamilton [in a release]. "Today, sustainability issues are increasingly top-of-mind for companies and governments, and the demand for daily coverage of these issues has never been higher." 

"The new Corporateknights.com was created to meet that demand. It complements our award-winning print magazine and further supports our collective mission: using information to empower markets that, in turn, can make the world a better place," Hamilton added.

U.S. survey says city and regional publishers still rely heavily on print for revenue

The annual Folio: magazine survey of city and regional magazine publishers says that local titles rely on print for as much as 93% of their annual revenue. And more print products are scheduled to launch this year than at any time in the last 5 years. A report in MediaPost says

Along with the rest of the publishing industry, print peaked in the mid-2000s for city and regional magazines, notes the report. It accounted for up to 95.9% of overall revenue in 2005, but it hasn't dipped far from that point. While custom publishing contracts have taken the place of a few ad dollars, the print-to-non-print revenue ratio is just a few points off where it was 10 years ago. The numbers are almost exactly what they were in 2008. (about 94%)

The smaller the publisher, the tougher it is  to diversify, says the story, and such publishers still count on  print ad sales for 80% of their revenue, essentially unchanged over the last 4 years.

British newspapers to split away from shared research with magazines

The decision by British newspapers to split away from a combined research measurement system they have shared for 60 years with the magazine industry is apparently driven by a hunger for better information about digital audiences. Guy Consterdine, research consultant for the international magazine association FIPP says the National Readership Service (NRS) has worked well, but magazines and newspapers are diverging:

To some extent one could see a split coming. As in so many other countries, for most national newspapers their total audiences have become weighted towards websites and other digital sources, as the latter grow rapidly while their print circulations continue to fall. For example, The Guardian has 10.4 million visitors to its website but only 3.9 million adult readers of the daily printed newspaper. Consumer magazines, by contrast, have audiences heavily weighted towards print. The newspapers’ core product – the fast-moving news, continuously updated – is so much more suited to digital media than once-a-day print that newspapers (or newsbrands as they are increasingly calling themselves) must focus more on their digital audiences in future, especially if as some commentators predict most newsbrands will eventually become digital-only.

In Canada, magazines are served by the PMB, the Print Measurement Bureau and newspapers are served by NADBank. PMB has been developing a combined print and online audience measurement mechanism in collaboration with comScore.  

HOLO Toronto launch unveils hard copy extension of art, science and tech site

Yet another example of a hard copy spinoff from a web-based site, this time HOLO, a magazine about emerging convergences of art, science and technology. It is a twice-a-year print extension of the British art, design and technology blog CreativeApplications.net, and the first issue weighs in at a hefty 200 pages. The magazine describes itself as "a periodical about ‘people interrogating technology’, and it focuses on the faces, personalities, and anecdotes behind important work." A single copy is $35; a two-issue subscription is $60. It can be picked up at Art Metropole in Toronto and Librairie Formats in Montreal. The Canadian launch (free) is Wednesday, June 25th from 7-9 p.m. at InterAccess, 9 Ossington Ave., Toronto. 

Canadian Family discontinuing print; moves to digital-only

[This post has been updated]St. Joseph Media announced today that Canadian Family magazine will become digital-only. [The result will be the layoff of seven people, including editor-in-chief Brandi Weikel and art director Colleen Nicholson.]Publication of the print magazine will be suspended following distribution of the summer issue. The company said that while readership is actually higher than it was 5 years ago, "print advertising support has continued to erode to ultimately unsustainable levels". 

The magazine will continue to run its Canadian Family Food Awards and Canadian Family Teacher Awards and will maintain its panel of 20,000 readers in its Family Tested Panel, who provide insights into products and services. The company said in a release

Canadianfamily.ca continues to experience tremendous growth in its digital audience, which is being supported by significant growth from advertisers looking to reach moms seeking family friendly recipes, family tested product reviews and helpful tips on everything from health and wellness to family activities for every season.

Until now, the magazine has been available in both print and digital, 8 issues for $12.95. 

Newsweek brought back in print as a "luxury product"

When the deep pockets and big brains of the business couldn't manage to keep Newsweek publishing, somehow a couple of audacious online publishers -- much to their surprise -- are bringing it back (at least in a small way) in print. 

According to a story in the New York Times, IBT Media bought Newsweek's assets at fire sale prices with the goal of publishing the newsweekly wholly on the web. They tripled Newsweek's online traffic and surprised themselves by coming to the conclusion that they could put out a hard copy edition and make it pay.

“We had no real plans to bring it back into print,” Jim Impoco, Newsweek’s editor in chief, said during a recent interview at the company’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan. “We called it the p-word.”

But Etienne Uzac, 30, and Johnathan Davis, 31 say that reader demand made them consider print. They plan to put 70,000 copies on the newsstand (a far cry from its circulation of 3.3 million 20 years ago) and sell them for $7.99 each (like The New Yorker).

“You would pay only if you don’t want to read anything on a backlit screen,” Mr. Uzac said. “It is a luxury product.”

Related stories:

•  Newsweek sails into an all-digital future; ends print edition
• Newsweek days in print are numbered; may go online-only this fall

Print version of Fresh Juice magazine being shut down by TC Media; online content to continue

TC Media is closing down the print version of Fresh Juice, effective with its current February/March issue. The magazine was launched in April 2012, in partnership with Loblaw, Canada's largest grocery retailer; TC Media was responsible for all content and Loblaw for most of the distribution. Some 400,000 copies were printed of each of its 6 issue, with 325,000 sent to the chain's most loyal and highest-spending customers and 60,000 to TC Media subscribers and 15,000 net sold on newsstands.

Fresh Juice will continue to be provided online, including its e-letters and social media, according to an official statement from TC Media.

As the brand evolved, it became apparent that this niche market of engaged consumers gravitates towards digital content, therefore it has been decided that Fresh Juice, the print magazine, will cease publication and the current February/March issue will be the last.

Most senior staff have been laid off and some junior staff have been moved over to Totem Brand Stories, TC Media's contract-publishing arm.

Fresh Juice was never officially positioned as a replacement for Homemaker's magazine, the subscription-based title which TC Media shut down in fall 2011 after 45 years. But that was how it was widely perceived.

Related posts:

• TC Media launches Fresh Juice in collaboration with Loblaw

Online magazine Hazlitt releasing a one-off print version

Hazlitt, the online magazine published by the book publishing giant Random House of Canada Limited, is releasing its first print issue this week worldwide.It's a one-of-a-kind that will be distributed through bookstores, newsstands and specialty retailers in Canada, the U.S. England, Japan, Hong Kong and elsewhere at a cost of $17.95.

The online site reaches 150,000 unique visitors online and the 160-page print extension is a compilation of original material and some "greatest hits" from the magazine. It features George Saunders, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sheila Heti, filmmaker Xavier Dolan, Joseph and Amanda Boyden, among many others.

The editor is Christopher Frey, editor-in-chief of Hazlitt and the director of digital publishing at Random House of Canada who is a five-time National Magazine Award winner. The art director is Jeremy Laing, a Toronto designer who launched his own eponymous clothing line in 2005 and was a finalist for France's prestigious ANDAM Fashion Award.

Hazlitt was launched in August 2012 and, in addition to online content, produces a weekly arts, culture and current affairs podcast called The Arcade and e-books under the Hazlitt Originals brand.