According to the survey, about 85% of readers said they spend either the same or more time with the digital edition; about 60% said they were more likely to visit an advertiser’s website while reading the digital edition, and 25% were “very satisfied” with the digital product, while 60% were “satisfied.” About 12% were “neutral” and 3% were “dissatisfied.”

Other highlights
Reader profile
93.1% - Male
49.9% - Professional or Managerial
40.1% - Technical
49.9% - More likely renew their digital subscription versus print
52.0% - Live in the USA

Why readers subscribe to a digital edition [multiple answers allowed]?
65.6% - Ability to search issues
59.6% - Easy to save
47.8% - Environmentally friendly
46.2% - Easy to send articles to colleagues
39.6% - More convenient than print
34.4%  -More timely than print
23.4% - Prefer reading on my computer

Sara Angel

May 26, 2006
Chatelaine appoints new editor
TORONTO–After being deserted for nearly 9 months, the editor’s chair at Chatelaine has finally been filled. Sara Angel will report to work at Canada’s largest consumer magazine on June 1.

Publisher Kerry Mitchell had been courting Angel since March. “When she offered it I accepted (the position) right away,” Angel said. “To me it’s such a tremendous privilege and honour to be offered the role.”

In an interview with Masthead, she said she regarded Chatelaine as one of the few iconic institutions in Canada. “I’ve always been a very strong Canadian nationalist.”

The editor position at Chatelaine was made contentious by Kim Pittaway’s sudden departure in September, 2005 over what she claimed was a lack of editorial control.

Of the controversial nature of her new post, Angel said Chatelaine had become Canada’s top women’s title through “strong editors with strong voices who have been given the autonomy to create a remarkable magazine.” She said she was not concerned about editorial interference. “I expect my vision will come through.”

When asked what her editorial vision for the magazine would be, she said it was “to deliver to Chatelaine readers…the very finest editorial content and packaging, i.e. graphic design, that reflect the passions, the goals, the objectives of Canadian women living in the twenty first century.”

She said she has no immediate plans to make changes in either editorial direction or personnel. “I’m looking forward to familiarizing myself with the editorial team here and getting to know Chatelaine readers. We’ll see an evolution from there.”

Much of Angel’s publishing background was filed under her maiden name, Borins. She is the daughter of Edward and Eva Borins who owned Edwards Books & Art, an independent chain of bookstores specializing in art and design. Sara’s career also started in the non-fiction book arena. She was once an editor at John Macfarlane’s publishing house Macfarlane Walter & Ross. She has since worked for famed designer Bruce Mau and art book publisher Phaidon Press in the U.K.

When she got the call from Chatelaine, she was running two self-started book publishing companies, Otherwise Editions and Angel Editions.

Her magazine experience comes from Saturday Night where she was the visual features editor. She also wrote a regular food column and articles on fashion, gardening and art.

hub:ce will have an initial circulation of 60,000 in street boxes in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa.

Lifestyle mags to use new attitudes towards consumer electronics TORONTO–Two new Toronto-based technology magazines will both tackle the consumer electronics audience with similar philosophies, but through different demographics.

hub:ce, a spin-off of Piccolo Publishing’s HUB: Digital Living with which shares its national free distribution model, will look at consumer electronics as a lifestyle rather than a geek niche. “(Technology) is an accessory now…you have to make sure your mp3 player has the right accessories,” says Scott Piccolo, hub’s publisher.

The free magazine uses service articles and an editorial focus on smart shopping to target urbanites in their late twenties “who are up-and-coming in their career,” Piccolo says. The 60-page glossy debuted across Toronto on May 23 as a precursor to a nationwide launch in September, at which point it will become a monthly.

While it shares its tech-as-lifestyle outlook with Canadian Smart Living, which launches in August across North America, CSL targets a more financially established readership by focusing on home décor.

Publisher Joe Tersigni says that means including women in your target demographic, another deviation from the geek niche mentality.

"When you're buying a big screen, a home theatre, it involves both people in the household,” Tersigni said.

Editorial content will feature home automation, indoor climate control, security and electronic entertainment. It will be distributed to Style at Home subscribers. Coincidentally, CSL is published by Transcontinental Media, which shares corporate parentage with Transcontinental Printing, hub’s printer.

May 25, 2006
INDAS allots a quarter of its new facility to new division
Markham, Ontario–Now that it has moved to a bigger facility, Canada's largest fulfillment company has expanded its in-house letter shop to enhance its client services.

INDAS spent more than $250,000 on new technology and set aside 13,000 square feet in its new Markham, Ont. headquarters for INDAS Mail, its improved letter shop operation.

With the purchase of a Spedo 2100 Cutter, an MBO Folder and two Bell & Howard Pinnacle Inserters along with a new postage meter and continuous laser printer, the company has “gone from a traditional cut sheet environment to now offering both continuous forms with cutting and folding as well as cut sheet and roll capability,” said Marc Tomei, INDAS’ vice president of operations.

The upgraded technology more than doubles the number of pieces they can insert per envelope, upping their production to 9,000 pieces per hour. INDAS has been competing with list-management firm Cornerstone since it entered the fulfillment market in 2003 and lured staff and clients–most notably Rogers’ trade publications–away from the larger, more established INDAS. While Tomei said the new facility was being planned before Cornerstone joined the fray, INDAS Mail is seen by the company as an opportunity to both get new clients and deepen its involvement with current ones.

“We’ve had clients approach us asking us specifically if we can do this functionality because right now they have to manage multiple vendors. This will allow them to keep everything within one vendor.”

FIPP's Guy Consterdine compiled Routes to success.

May 24, 2006
Lessons learned, profits up
LONDON, England–A recent survey of b2b magazine publishers from around the world showed that more of their websites are turning a profit than four years ago. These publishers also offered lessons they’d learned from their online experiences.

The survey, produced by the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) and called Routes to success for b2b publishers’ websites, showed that of those participants who tracked their websites’ finances separately from that of their magazines, 68% were turning a profit. Another 18% were breaking even.
This is a significant increase from 2002 when FIPP reported only 25% of surveyed websites were profitable. As part of the survey, publishers were also asked to share “principal lessons they would like to pass on about developing and operating a website strategy.” Some of the most common tips included:
* poll the readers to understand what they expect from your website
* invest money and time (years if necessary) in the pursuit of profit and higher readership
* update content and services constantly to remain timely and flexible
* keep it as simple as possible

The survey was conducted among 42 publishers who considered their sites successful according to their company’s own criteria (generating revenue, subscriptions, online branding etc.).The survey is available at www.fipp.com/publications.

Harvey Botting (left) and Colin Eicher, principal at Edmonton-based June Warren Publishing, catch up at Magazines University in 2003. Botting says he's resigning from Rogers because "it just feels right." Believe it or not, he turned 62 on April 30.

May 23, 2006
Botting reflects on his 37 years in magazines
TORONTO—Greater than the invention of desktop publishing and even the Internet, women have had the most profound effect on trade magazine publishing, says Rogers Publishing senior vice-president Harvey Botting, 62, who announced last week that he was capping his 37-year career in publishing at the end of June. Botting oversees more than 40 trade magazines.

His story is a classic tale of an editor who made good in management. After a BA from University of Toronto and a journalism degree from Chicago’s Northwestern University, he took a job as assistant editor at Maclean Hunter’s Canadian Datasystems on September 18, 1969. “Oh my god, I remember the day as clear as a bell,” he recalls. “I was wearing a gray suit, I can see my desk…the first day of my professional engagement.” By 1974 he rose to the post of editor/publisher of Canada & The World, a nine-times-a-year educational supplement distributed to schools. He jumped to management when he successfully applied to become an executive assistant to president Don Campbell.

When Rogers Communications acquired Maclean Hunter in 1995, Botting was stationed in London overseeing MH’s extensive collection of about 70 European trade titles (including the workhorse media-rates-and-data publications in eight European countries), which Rogers subsequently liquidated. His contract contained a clause stating that if the business was sold or taken over, he was to be retained or provided with a severance. The publishing industry in Canada at that time was a “hurricane” Botting says, so he opted for a severance and six months later was back in Canada and recast his life with Quebecor, where he ended up vice-president of its retail flyer-printing operation. In 1997, he got a call from friend and MH veteran (then Rogers) vice-president Terry Malden to succeed him as head of Rogers’ trade titles as Malden was moving over to the consumer side of Rogers Publishing as executive vice-president and chief operating officer. Botting accepted and has overseen Canada’s largest collection of B2B books ever since. Because he’s resigning from Rogers, he must also resign as president of the Canadian Business Press, the industry association on whose board he has sat for years. He has completed one year of a two-year term with the CBP and his successor in that capacity—and in his capacity at Rogers—has not been announced. Rogers Publishing president Brian Segal could not be reached for comment.

Reflecting on industry change during the past four decades, Botting says “everything is dramatically better. The business I know today is infinitely more sophisticated and better in every way than the business I joined. The look of the publications is better because desktop publishing is so much richer. We’re putting a lot of money into colour and graphics. The quality of person we’re hiring is so much better, editorially. The kids on my floor [now], if I had been competing against them at the time I started out, they would have just eaten my lunch.”

The Internet “has been the most transformational event I have seen. But the most important thing of all has been the role of women. When I joined this business, it was clearly a male-dominated business. I absolutely revel in the transition when we started drawing from not just one gender but from all society. And all of a sudden this brilliant group of young women came in and really transformed the business in many ways. Of all of the things—forget technology, forget the Internet—it’s been the power of women and drawing from all society that has dramatically lifted the quality of our publications in every way.” It’s like baseball, says Botting. If you exclude a certain percentage of your populace, you only get the best of one group. Open it up to all, and you simply get more talent on staff.

“As well—and I can get into trouble for saying this—women are wonderful when it comes to dealing with intangibles. Advertising is an intangible. And they’re very good at dealing with nuance and sophisticated concepts. Now, it’s a generalization. I will get shot for it. I accept getting shot for it, but they are really good at nuance and just articulate things brilliantly and I see it time and time and time again. Some guys, if you have a Canadian Tire mindset, it’s a wrench, and it’s on/off, good/bad, black/white, yes/no. And many guys can think that way—I’m getting deeper in this,” he says with reluctance, aware of the political incorrectness of gender stereotyping, “—and women are very good with nuance and subtlety, and I just see it all the time. So, shoot me for that.”

So, what’s next? “Winston Churchill once said that university is a place to go to determine all the book you’re going to spend the rest of your life reading,” he says, suggesting he may take a few courses. “I can’t focus on what I’m going to do next until I’ve processed this. I just have to get through to the end of June. But I can assure you there is absolutely no hidden notion of declaring myself on the first of July that I’ve got some big, fancy gig because I simply don’t. It just feels right [to leave]…I know it sounds kind of hollow but it’s just the bald-assed truth.” 

Outspoken Rogers Publishing editorial director Lise Ravary will participate in ad-edit debate

May 18, 2006
Another church-state debate
MONTREAL—The Ad Club of Toronto wrestled with the issue at its Magazine Day in Toronto in April and now L’Association Quebecoise des editeurs de magazines will examine the shifting line that separates advertising from editorial content. The debate will take place during AQEM’s annual professional development day, Journee Magazines, on May 31 at Montreal’s Centre Mont-Royal. The French-language event will begin with a panel discussion on the ad-edit issue. Panelist Sylvain Bedard, Transcontinental Media’s business magazines publisher, will argue that a clear division between editorial and ad content is necessary to maintain credibility with readers. Ad agency executive Marc Hamelin of Carat will advocate an artistic, rather than editorial, approach to ad integration, using visual examples of how art teams should be the ones creating opportunities for advertisers without violating readers’ sense of propriety. Other panelists include Diesel Marketing’s Jean-Francois Bouchard and Lise Ravary, vice-president and editorial director of women’s titles and new magazine brands at Rogers Publishing.

The panel will be followed by seminars focusing on: art-directing tricks; the Internet’s impact on magazine publishing and readership; and arts publications in the Quebec market. The day will conclude with cocktails and the announcement of the association's Grand Prix Award winners. See www.magazinesquebec.com or call 514-499-9847 for more info.

Eric Bérard, editor-in-chief, L'Echo du Transport

May 17, 2006
Canadian trucking mags haul awards
LOUISVILLE, KY—Quebec-based L’Echo du Transport took best-in-show honours at an industry event south of the border. The Truck Writers of North America recently lauded the French-language publication as offering the Best of Magazine Writing. “You don't know how proud I am,” said L’Echo publisher Pierre Gravel. “It’s tough when you have a French magazine—to present that to North America, to people who don’t read French.”

Despite the language barrier, the presentation speech was made partially in French, something Gravel said made the honour even more meaningful.

Producing the content behind the award was editor-in-chief Eric Bérard for his piece, “Les Américains subventionnés pour rajeunir leurs vieux moteurs diesel” (“Americans get grants to modernize old diesel engines”), which took gold in the environmental/regulatory category, as well as the overall best-article honour. Bérard also won bronze for in the news category for his “Mon moteur est melleur que le tien!” (“My engine is better than yours”).

The 18,000-circ glossy has twice earned honourable mention at Canada’s National Magazine Awards, most recently in 2004 in the Science & Technology category. It’s currently celebrating its 30th anniversary.

Other Canadian winners:

Magazine Writing - Investigative – Them’s the Brakes - Today's Trucking - Silver to Marco Beghetto (Toronto-based Newcom Business Media)
Magazine Writing - Feature - Sounds Like a Plan - Today's Trucking - Silver to Marco Beghetto
Magazine Writing - Column/Series - Rear View - Today's Trucking - Silver to Peter Carter, editor
Magazine Writing - Interviews - La grandé seduction - Transport Routier - Silver to Steve Bouchard - Peter Carter (Newcom)
Magazine Writing - Technical General - Cold Facts - Truck News - Bronze to Adam Ledlow (Glacier’s Business Information Group)
Magazine Writing - Feature - Trucker Buddy International Matches Tots with Trucks - Truck News - Silver to Adam Ledlow (BIG)
Magazine Writing - News - Bullets Fly as Port Strike Ends - Truck News - Silver to James Menzies (BIG)
Magazine Writing - Product Applications - Adopting Automation - Motortruck - Bronze to Julia Kuzeljevich (BIG)
Magazine Writing - News - Strength in Numbers - Motortruck - Silver to Julia Kuzeljevich (BIG)
Magazine Writing - Pamphlet - Are You Secure? - Bronze to Lou Smyrlis (BIG) 

Canada Wide VP Karen Foss

May 16, 2006
SFU offers new mag workshops
VANCOUVER—Simon Fraser University has broadened the magazine stream of its Summer Publishing Workshop program this year by adding new seminars. The new workshops are What You Need to Know Before Launching a Magazine, and Advanced Magazine Writing. Freelance Writing for Magazines has been expanded. 

Sessions are run by industry experts such as Karen Foss, vice-president of operations at Canada Wide Magazines & Communications Ltd., Vancouver Sun editor Denise Ryan, and Connie Wilson, who successfully launched niche lifestyle title Modern Dog without prior publishing experience in 2002.

The summer courses complement the university’s full-time writing and publishing program at the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing. The one- to three-day courses run throughout July and admission costs range from $200 to $450 per workshop. Registration is open now and runs until the week prior to the seminars’ individual start dates. For more, visit www.sfu.ca/pubworks.

George Bain was the first dean of journalism at University of King's College in Halifax

Former Maclean’s media critic dies
HALIFAX—Magazine and newspaper columnist George Bain, who for more than 10 years wrote the Media Watch column in Maclean’s starting in the mid-1980s, died Sunday May 14 in his sleep at age 86.

An obituary in yesterday’s Globe and Mail quoted former Maclean’s managing editor Geoffrey Stevens describing Bain as “one of the great journalists of the day.” Bain had Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition to his media criticism column in Maclean’s, Bain also wrote Gotcha! How the Media Distort the News, (Key Porter Books: Toronto, 1994).

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday May 18 at the Mahone Funeral home, in Mahone Bay, N.S.