TC Media partners with LC Média to super-size automotive network

TC Media is transferring editorial and management of its AutoGo.ca auto site to LC Média and linking it with The Car Guide website and its French-language counterpart, the Guide de l’auto, as well as with the  Montrealracing.com . The transaction doubles the total audience reach to 1,530,000 unique visitors, generating 9,695,000 page views per month.

LC Média has been in business since 1999 and has published Le Guide de l’auto for 50 years; it has a circulation of 90.000 copies.It also has a TV show on the MAtv channel, and has a mobile site and an iPad app. The LC Média Web Network, includes Guidebateau.com, Boatguideweb.com and OctaneFix.com and generates over 6.5 million page views monthly and over 930,000 unique visitors per month.

The partnership gives LC Média's The Car Guide significant English-language traffic in the Atlantic provinces and expands TC Media's offerings for car dealers and sellers.

Design Edge Canada magazine now owned and operated by C.J. Oyster Publishing

Design Edge Canada magazine has been sold to the C.J. Group of Companies  and its  C.J. Oyster Publishing Inc. division in Toronto. 

The magazine was started in 2006 by North Island Publishing Limited of Mississauga, which also publishes the online magazine Masthead. According to a post on the magazine's website, the takeover brings with it the revival of the Canadian Regional Design Awards, which North Island had started but which were in hiatus.

"The paperwork was completed in May and the transition has been gradual, but as of last week The C.J. Group of Companies in Toronto is proud to announce we have completed taking over of the Design Edge Canada media brand, including Design Edge Canada magazine, designedgecanada.com as well as the Canadian Regional Design Awards (a.k.a. “the Redgees").... 

"We are very excited about taking on this publication and its affiliated properties,” says Jay Mandarino, founder and CEO of The C.J. Group of Companies. “It’s important to us that this publication flourishes and continues its mandate to inform and inspire graphic designers, art directors, creative directors and all other professionals associated with design in its many forms across Canada.”

Leslie Smith will be the publisher, replacing Doug Bennet, the founding publisher. She said that the redesigned magazine will be unveiled in September and the  hope was to revive the Design Awards in early 2014.

Glacier buys Whistler newsmagazine Pique

Pique, the free weekly newsmagazine in Whistler, BC has been bought by Glacier Media Group from Bob Barnett, who owned Pique Publishing. Barnett and his late wife Kathy started the publication in 1994. Glacier owns the major competitor called the Whistler Question, which is part of the sprawling network of more than 100 community papers it owns across Canada. It's not known if the two papers will be merged.

"The media world is not getting any easier for independents," Barnett told Business in Vancouver (a Glacier publication). "I'm still interested in the job, but it's not what it used to be. Glacier has resources that they can bring to the table while everyone works to figure out how to survive in today's media market. 

"It took some time to get my head around the sale. There is a lot of pride in building this from scratch. I took pride in being independent. But it was time."

Meredith Corporation doubles online reach by buying Reader's Digest's Allrecipes.com

As part of a spree of acquisition, particularly in the food and recipe area, Meredith Corporation has confirmed that it is buying Allrecipes.com from Reader's Digest Association (RDA). The resulting $175 million transaction means that the 13-year-old site, which reaches 100 million Americans and has sister sites in 22 countries, will double the Meredith Women's Network (Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Fitness, More etc.) to nearly 40 million unduplicated monthly visitors, according to a story on Folio:.
The deal will complement Meredith's October 2011 purchase of Every Day with Rachael Ray (also from RD) and Eating Well in July 2011.
Meredith's recently launched Recipe.com (in print and digital) will remain separate from Allrecipes for now.

RDA announced its plans to focus on its “master brands” in fall 2011, [said the Folio: story] which include Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home and The Family Handyman. Since the announcement, the publisher continues to par down its content portfolio along with its staff; the publisher cut 150 positions worldwide in December.