Masthead News Archives
April 2004
April 30, 2004
National Magazine Award nominees announced
TORONTO—The National Magazine Awards Foundation today released the list of nominees across 31 editorial and visual categories. Perennial favourite Toronto Life leads the pack with 25 nominations, followed by L'actualité (23), explore (18), Toro (18), Report on Business (17), Saturday Night (13), The Walrus (11), Maclean's (8) and Maisonneuve (8). The winners will be announced at a gala event at the Carlu in Toronto on June 11. For the complete list of nominees, visit www.nmaf.net.

April 29, 2004
KRW nominations announced
TORONTO-The Canadian Business Press has released the list of nominees for this year's Kenneth R. Wilson Awards, which celebrate excellence in trade publishing. Marketing Magazine leads the pack, receiving 21 nominations (16 for editorial content, five for art direction) followed by CAmagazine with 20 nominations (six for editorial, 12 for art, one for integrated ed/art and one for best Web site). Other titles receiving multiple nominations include: Canadian Lawyer (nine), Foodservice & Hospitality (seven), National (seven), The Medical Post (five), Plant (four), Le Coopérateur Agricole (four) and Quill & Quire (four). Gold and silver winners and three honourable mentions across 20 categories will be announced at a gala dinner to be held in Toronto on Monday, June 7, kicking off Mags U week. For the complete list of nominees, visit www.cbp.ca.

April 27, 2004
Modern Dog gives a paw to Regis
VANCOUVER—Look for covers and mention of Modern Dog magazine to keep popping up on popular U.S. morning show LIVE with Regis and Kelly. As part of the show's Mutt America Pageant, the winning dog, along with Regis and Kelly will be featured on the cover of the fall issue of the magazine. Publisher Connie Wilson says LIVE called her about three weeks ago with a partnership offer. Wilson said Modern Dog's lifestyle approach to dog ownership struck show producers as the most compatible editorial environment in which to feature the winning mutt, who will be crowned in May. And it has to be a mutt—no haughty purebreds allowed. "Mutt America 2004" will be photographed in a New York studio under the magazine's art direction. The talk around local fire hydrants is that Edmonton-based Vogel Publishing, which holds an equity stake in Modern Dog and provides fulfillment services, is well equipped to deal with a sudden spike in demand for the glossy, which launched in October 2002. The 25,000-circ quarterly distributes about 12,000 copies stateside, but look for that to rise "significantly" with the fall issue, hints Wilson. "We are representative of the demographic that's treating dogs like family," she says. "We're just happy to be associated with this contest."

April 21, 2004
Memorial service for "Gentleman Jack"
TORONTO—Friends and colleagues of the late Jack Kerr will gather May 13 to remember the founder of Kerrwil Publications. "Gentleman Jack" Kerr died Feb. 21 at age 87. He entered publishing in 1964 at the age of 47 as the former president of a cable and wire company. He launched Electrical Business, which grew to dominate the category by the 1980s. Later came such titles as Lighting, Structured Cabling, Manufacturing Automation and CAD Systems. A workhorse, he remained active in the publishing business well into his 80s before deciding to sell all but one title—Canadian Yachting—to CLB Media in 2001. "One of the philosophies that I tried to push into the minds of people," Kerr told Masthead in 2002, "is that when you're in the publishing business you're in two industries. And it's a lot easier to sell advertising to friends than strangers. I worked hard at it. Those relationships stay." The service will be held at 2 p.m. at St. George's On-The-Hill in Toronto, 4600 Dundas Street W. (between Royal York Road and Islington), with a reception to follow in the church.

April 20, 2004
New staffers at Maclean's
TORONTO—There's been a healthy batch of recent hires at Maclean's after the newsweekly drew criticisms from the union representing its editorial staff for shaving positions last year. Valerie Marchant, a former co-editor of Heavy Metal Magazine, was appointed chief of research late March, succeeding Patricia Treble, who requested to give up the position. Treble remains a full-time researcher with special responsibilities on larger projects. Marchant's resumé is a conversation starter; she holds an MBA in international finance from NYU and has been a senior reporter based in New York for Time, consulting editor for the Old Farmer's Almanac; editor for Fortune Adviser and story editor for World Press Review. The Ste. Adele, Que., native has also written for the National Lampoon. Also joining Maclean's late last month as associate editor was Lianne George, most recently a senior editor at Elle Canada and prior to that an arts and life reporter with the National Post. She holds an MA in journalism from U.W.O. In February, former Financial Post features editor Joanna Pachner joined the newsweekly to fill the newly created position of editor at large, strategic planning. More details will be available in the May issue of Masthead.

April 15, 2004
Disticor acquires adult-title distributor
AJAX, Ont.Disticor Magazine Distribution Services, one of Canada's largest national distributors, has purchased MasterMedia, a much smaller rival based in Oakville, Ont. About half of MasterMedia's business over the past two decades has come from distributing so-called sophisticate or adult titles-porn-a category that's been dwindling steadily with the rise of the Internet. MasterMedia owner Ken Blakey, a former branch manager for Metro News, bought the company in 1978. He will retain ownership of In the Bag Promotions and National Packworks-polybagging operations catering to the magazine industry. Blakey says he'll eventually sell those companies to Disticor as well. "We have discussed this at various times over the past several years," says Disticor CEO John Lafranier. "We agreed that when Ken felt the time was right to do something, we would act accordingly. Ken invited me to lunch last October and the rest is history."

April 13, 2004
Transcontinental deepens link to INDAS
MONTREAL—The country's largest fulfillment agency just got a little bigger after signing a contract with Transcontinental Media, the country's second-largest magazine publisher. INDAS was already servicing about 50% of Transcontinental's subscriber base, including such titles as Style at Home, Canadian Living and TV Guide. INDAS now assumes the publisher's Montreal fulfillment operation, which encompasses 23 titles and about 1.3 million names, including French-language trade and consumer magazines. "In the past year it became evident that a specialist offering the latest technology could better meet the needs of those subscribers," said Brian Master, Transcontinental vice-president of circulation. Earlier this year, INDAS began providing fulfillment services to Rogers Publishing. Further developments on this story will appear in the May issue of Masthead.

April 8, 2004
Canadian ad tracker lands huge account
TORONTO—After years of plugging away in the U.S. marketplace, Martin Hochstein has landed the most prestigious account of all. Hochstein's IMS Inc., based here, tracks advertising activity in the business-to-business sector in more than 800 stateside trade publications. IMS, with 200 employees, has displaced France-based TNS Media Intelligence/CMR as the data provider to American Business Media, the 98-year-old association serving B2B publishers in the U.S. "It's something we've been working on for seven years," says Hochstein, adding that IMS is now "the largest [B2B] ad tracking company in North America." The association selected IMS because it measures about 300 more titles than TNS, he adds. "We've become an overnight success after 25 years."

April 6, 2004
Thomson acquires Lexpert
TORONTO—Lexpert magazine, the 16,000-circ glossy established in 1999, has been purchased by Thomson-owned, Toronto-based Carswell, an electronic information provider to legal, finance and human resource professionals. The deal includes a bundle of other assets including three legal directories and a Web site. "This is a wonderful opportunity to expand the Lexpert brand and enhance our capabilities," said Lexpert director John Black in a released statement.

April 1, 2004
Kate Macdonald passes away suddenly
TORONTO
FQ executive editor Kate Macdonald, former editor of Images, Harry and Gardening Life, has died. "Kate passed away this morning," said Kontent Publishing president Geoffrey Dawe. "She was loved by the staff here. She was a real class act." Further details are not available. Macdonald, 43, leaves her husband and three sons. An obituary will appear in tomorrow's Toronto Star.

Quill & Quire, Oxygen editors to take new posts
TORONTO—It's no joke. After almost 11 years covering Canada's book publishing industry, Quill & Quire editor-in-chief Scott Anderson is moving on to become editor and manager at University of Toronto Magazine, a quarterly alumni title previously edited by Rick Spence. "Basically my whole career has been here," says Anderson, a Queen's University grad (economics) who joined Q&Q as an intern in 1993 after completing an internship at Harper's in 1991. He has been Q&Q editor since 1996. The May issue will be his last. News editor Derek Weiler succeeds Anderson on April 30.
Meanwhile, Nancy LePatourel, editor-in-chief of Mississauga-based/U.S. distributed extreme women's fitness title Oxygen has been tapped to succeed Jane Francisco as editor of Glow Magazine, the 500,000-circ glossy bimonthly produced by Rogers for Shoppers Drug Mart. Francisco was poached in January by St. Joseph Media to head up a new shopping title, tentatively called Bliss, which launches in September.

Web Archives
Most Recent News Comment
Jaded says:
Wow, Torstar really seems to be on a mission to bankrupt one magazine after another....
Most Recent Blog Comment
Lorene Shyba says:
Full of terrific information, Thanks!...