OOPs...The Economist (finally) realizes it was giving free digital subscriptions

The Economist magazine has been serving some people a digital subscription to its magazine for free, sometimes for as long as five years. According to a story in paidContent, the magazine will revoke those premium digital subs next week and insist that people pay for them. “There was an error in our database which resulted in a number of people being assigned full subscription rights by mistake,”

Less than a buck a copy the pre-publication offer for Sportsnet magazine subscribers

With the September 29 launch date looming, Rogers Publishing is offering its new Sportsnet magazine for about 97 cents a copy (for 30 issues) to charter subscribers and, with that, comes a digital edition. (The price doesn't include taxes.)  The deal is sweetened by a soft offer of the first four issues free, with no obligation. 
Subscribers to Rogers cable and/or phone services can get the

Convenience store exec says magazines sections are shrinking because they're too much trouble

Magazine sections at convenience stores are shrinking and one of the reasons is that stocking and shelving magazines is too labour intensive, according to Peter Chappell, senior category manager for Mac's. He told a Toronto meeting last week of the Periodical and Book Association of America (PBAA) that magazine sales represent just one per cent of sales at Canadian convenience stores, while

Bloomberg Business Week plunges ahead with alternative delivery

In the wake of our recent post about the need for Canadian magazines to get cracking on alternative delivery comes word that Bloomberg Business Week magazine since December has been working on a strategy to get its magazine delivered by daily newspaper contractors in metropolitan markets. Right now, 9% (about 75,000) of the magazine's 860,000 circ is delivered this way, according to a story in

Plays well with others -- The New Quarterly and ARC Poetry publish joint double issue

[This post has been updated]
ARC Poetry and The New Quarterly have collaborated on a joint special double issue this summer. The "Quarc Issue" is presented in flipbook style and is literally two magazines in one.
"This special double issue...presents scientists and artists alike with a unique opportunity to observe what happens when two solid, award-winning magazines smash into each other like a

Annual subs to new Sportsnet magazine from Rogers may sell for $1.50 an issue

We are learning a bit more about Rogers Publishing's new Sportsnet magazine, to be launched in the fall. For one thing, the price point. 
An online survey being conducted now suggests that a single copy price may be $4.95, a one-year, 26-issue subscription could be $39 (about $1.50 per issue) and a monthly subscription available to Rogers Advantage customers could be discounted 10% to $3 a month

Four out of five couponing customers don't come back, report says

Recently, magazines in Canada have jumped on the couponing bandwagon, offering deep discounts in daily deals through sites like Groupon. The idea is to build subscriptions and, perhaps, to expose the magazines to new customers who will renew. This may be a faint hope.According to research published by Rice University (reported by ClickZ) , while 80% of deal users were new customers, only 20%

Jon Spencer wins Circulation Marketer of the Year at CMC ACE Awards

Jon Spencer of Abacus Circulation was named Marketer of the Year yesterday at the Circulation Marketing Association of Canada (CMC) ACE Awards (part of the MagNet conference). Spencer is well-known as a circulator, consultant and seminar presenter. Other winners were:The Caren King Award for professional development: Amanda Beattie of Quarto Communications, Circulation Coordinator at Cottage

Preview of Next Issue Media digital newsstand for U.S. titles now online

A consortium of five major U.S. magazine publishers who formed Next Issue Media in 2009 have finally unveiled their "digital newsstand". According to a story in MediaDailyNews, a preview is available exclusively on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.0, but will be introduced as a standalone app later this year.Next Issue Media was formed by Conde Nast, Hearst Corp., Meredith, News Corp., and Time Inc. with

Cheaper, faster, bigger volume: is this really the way to go with magazines?

The announcement this week that future subscribers to The New Yorker will be offered a package including both the print and iPad edition in the U.S. for $69.99 is an indication that the publisher Condé Nast hopes to make up for lower consumer prices digitally with higher volumes of circulation. David Carr in the New York Times says this may well double the circulation of The New Yorker, but at

Looming deadline for ACE circulation marketing awards -- entries due May 6

Entries for the 2011 ACE Awards for circulation marketers have to be made by May 6, 2011. Winners will be announced at MagNet during the annual CMC lunch on Wednesday June 8. Categories (free entry to CMC members; $30 to others) include:Consumer offline -- renewals, bills, donor, direct mail etc.
Consumer online -- emails, renewals, contests etc.
Consumer retail promotion -- newsstand promotions

Get magazines cheap; rope in your friends

In a nod to the current mania for couponing sites, online agency Magazines.com is offering discount subscriptions through Facebook. For instance, Fitness magazine, which is being offered for $5 for 10 issues. According to an item on MediaPost, Using the Moontoast platform, Magazines.com is offering consumers the ability to share special deals on magazine subscriptions with their friends, with

Mind my back; Men's Fashion in polybag makes Fashion invisible

I note that on my local Shoppers Drug Mart rack, the current (spring) issue of Men's Fashion, polybagged with its parent, Fashion magazine, is strongly evident. The two magazines are back-to-back in the bag, which means that May issue of Fashion magazine is facing the rack, completely hidden. I'm somehow sure that this wasn't the intention...
Related posts:Men's Fashion spring edition apparently

British mags association head warns of damage from soaring bulk mail prices

McIlheney
To quote South Park, blame Canada. A "modernization" campaign is roiling the British post office, the Royal Mail, led by the former head of Canada Post Moya Green, who took over last July. The latest move has been to remove price controls from all parcels more than a kilogram in weight and from second class pre-sorted bulk mail. But Barry McIlheney, the chief executive of the

Quote, unquote: Building a subscriber-friendly device-agnostic front end

We're hedging our bets--Apple right now has the largest market share in tablet usage. Six months from now, Android and the whole Google platform may grow or it may not, or Apple and Google may split the market up. What we want to do--and it's been hard, especially with Apple since they haven't been too transparent--is make this a front-end experience for the subscriber that's device-agnostic

Subscription skidmarks longer in Canada than U.S., but single copy sales do better: ABC

A follow-up on yesterday's report on ABC 6-month data: Canadian consumer magazines' total paid and verified circulation fell 4.03%, compared with a 1.2% drop in the U.S. 
Subscription sales in Canada fell 5.9%, compared with 1.2% in the U.S. 
Single copy sales in Canada fell 6.1%, compared with 7.3% in the U.S.

Rogers titles show strongly in single copy sales in latest ABC circulation data

Latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) six-month data ended December 31, 2010 shows that several magazines have enjoyed double-digit growth in total paid and verified average per issue circulation.
Big gainers among consumer magazines:Montreal Centre-Ville, up 98.3% to 3,888 (also 38,544 controlled)
Moi & Cie, up 44.2% to 60,073 (also 1,767 controlled)
Hamilton Magazine, up 39% to 24,459 (

Google to launch rival service to Groupon couponing site favoured by Canadian magazines

Of late, several Canadian magazines have jumped on to using Groupon and its daily coupons to sell deep discount subs (Ski Canada, BC Business, Canadian Art, This magazine). While the return is small, it is a way of inexpensively reaching large pools of potential subscribers who can perhaps be converted to regular subscriptions.Groupon was courted by Google last year and there was talk of a $6

Transcon online sub deal not quite as good as it looks at first

On its face, it looks like a great deal. Transcontinental Media is using couponer Toronto Deals Blog to offer a one-year subscription to Style at Home for $11 and for the Hockey News at $23. But the fine print in the "one-day only" deal is that, while you nominally save 56% off the newsstand price, you'll have to pay $5.95 for shipping, handling and applicable taxes on Style and $7.95 for Hockey

It's not all that hard to subscribe to magazines in Canada, really

A casual glance at a recent press release suggested that there was a new player among subscription services for Canadian readers. Turns out, however, that Acclaim Subscriptions Canada is simply a phone and web link to a U.S. company.  The release was merely a marketing initiative by the Brooklyn, New York-based Acclaim Subscriptions."Joyce Redding of Toronto is pleasantly overwhelmed by the