Canadian Magazine Industry News
13 June 2013, MISSISSAUGA
Tosca Reno opens up about Robert Kennedy closure
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Reno linked to a post on her website where she confirmed, as pointed out by Masthead commenters, that it was RKP's parent company Canusa Products Inc. that had filed for bankruptcy June 7, 2013.
"It has been well-reported that the publishing industry has been hit hard in the last decade in the face of free digital access, resulting in a consistent sharp decline in sales of traditional print publishing," reads the post.
RKP, which produced popular magazine titles MuscleMag International, Reps, Oxygen, American Curves and Clean Eating, as well as numerous best-selling books, was wobbled by the success of tablets and e-books, along with "the soft economy," she wrote.
Masthead readers have commented that different magazine titles were owned by different entities at the time of the bankruptcy filing, whether Canusa, Robert Kennedy Publishing, or some other iteration, and that as such some properties would be up for sale.
A rep from Deloitte & Touche, appointed trustee of the bankrupt estate, confirmed that Canusa's properties would be sold but was unable provide a complete breakdown as of yet. The rep said that Oxygen and MuscleMag are not owned by Canusa, and that more info would be posted in the coming days on the Deloitte website.
"We would be selling any assets of Canusa in order to build up the pot for the creditors…we just haven't started a sales process. They're still looking at different ways of how they're going to do this. We have a lot of issues with copyright, and who owns what, so that might have to be sorted out first," said the rep. According to a document on the Deloitte site, a meeting of creditors is scheduled for June 27, 2013.
Reno wrote that she was "forced to make the decision to restructure the business as a whole in order to allow our brands, Oxygen, Clean Eating and The Eat-Clean Diet to possibly find a new home."
Robert Kennedy Publishing was started 40 years ago by Reno's husband, Robert Kennedy, who passed away April 2012. Reno assumed the position of publisher and chief executive officer shortly thereafter, a transition she describes on her site as less than sure-footed.
"As many of you know, last year I lost my husband of eight years and reluctantly took the helm of the distressed publishing business he built," she wrote. Since his passing, the company "has struggled tremendously in his absence unable to shoulder the burdens he left behind."
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Jaded says: | |
Wow, Torstar really seems to be on a mission to bankrupt one magazine after another.... |
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Lorene Shyba says: | |
Full of terrific information, Thanks!... |
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Publications fail in all media, and there are an awful lot of digital products that don't make a dime. A number of those digital attempts are what have helped sink some print publications, since far too many print publishers cannot wrap their heads around how to make money in the digital space, but they keep throwing money at the web assuming that the payoff will come eventually.
Many compound the failure to understand that the web is a different medium by doing such foolish things as using it is a loss-leader for their print products, which just adds cost to their structure (personnel to produce the digital product, additional server requirements, site designers, etc.) with inadequate revenue to justify the expense and effort.
Would these magazines have found another life online? Perhaps, but only if they managed to overcome the problem that faced their print products, and that is revenue stream, not the medium upon which they are presented.
The attack on print is unwarranted.