It’s a question almost every successful Canadian publisher has had to face—how do you differentiate your magazine from the American competition? For Sam Cohen, who got his start in this business nine years ago when he launched the successful climbing magazine Gripped, the answer has always been relatively straightforward: weather.

Gripped Inc. publisher Sam Cohen has already built successful magazines for Canadian climbers and triathletes. With his latest launch, Cohen is hoping to reach Canada's runners.

Running may be a global sport, but unlike most of the world’s sprinters and joggers, Canada’s runners have to face four seasons, including a very long and very harsh winter.
By playing up this seasonality angle and combining it with profiles of Canadian athletes, Cohen hopes to set Canadian Running apart from Rodale Press’s Runner’s World, which has a North American circulation of 600,000.

“We’ve come into a market with an American magazine servicing the Canadian market but doing it as an afterthought,” Cohen says. “We saw that the [Canadian] running community is looking for a magazine to serve its own specific needs.”

Those needs include information about clubs, races and events in Canada, training guides, health tips and reviews of running gear available in the Great White North. Cohen says circulation will be around 30,000. The bimonthly will sell on newsstands for $4.95, while subscriptions are currently available for $17.95 (that price will jump to $20.95 once the magazine launches on Feb. 15). The rate for a full-page, four-colour ad is $3,400.

To attract readers, a sample copy of Canadian Running will be delivered to subscribers of Triathlon Magazine Canada, a magazine Cohen launched with his partners Dave Smart and Tom Valis two and a half years ago. Copies will also be available at select races throughout 2008, though Cohen says he’s aiming for about 90% paid circulation.

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