Former Osprey chief exec Michael Sifton now to run Sun Media Corporation

With the absorption of Osprey Media, its newspaper and magazines, into the maw of Quebecor Media Inc., Michael Sifton was at loose ends, we suppose. Not any more; he has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Quebecor's Sun Media Corporation. As such, he will be running Canada's largest newspaper publishing company.With the inclusion of the 20 Osprey dailies and 38 community papers,

Premier can't have it both ways, says Catholic Insight editor

Plunging headfirst into the Ontario election campaign, the editor of Catholic Insight, magazine has condemned Premier Dalton McGuinty for "scandalizing" a group of students by saying he could separate his personal Catholicism from his public life. McGuinty told a group of students at a Markham Catholic high school that his "private" faith doesn't determine his positions on public policy."There is

Parsing 30 years of Cosmopolitan

We always thought every issue of Cosmopolitan was the same issue; same models, same cleavage, same clothes, same relationship and sex advice. But, apparently, the magazine has evolved over the past 30 years, at least according to some scorekeeping from an article in Jezebel.com. Smokes and liquor are out; but perfume is a perennial. See for yourself. And check out their take on the differences in

UK readers said to be buying 72% more magazines now than 10 years ago

Magazine readers in the United Kingdom now spend 72 per cent more on magazines than they did 10 years ago, according to a new survey, reported in UK Press Gazette.20 million magazines are sold every week, or 28 magazines every second and UK consumers spend £2bn a year on purchasing magazines with 23 per cent spending more than £10 a month on titles. Three quarters of the population regularly buy

Quote, unquote: The Economist says the top of the market is bigger than many think

“You turn on your television anywhere now, you get so much pap that what I think people want is substance. We're going to make them think. There's no great theme behind it. We just follow the things we think are interesting. ... It is a part of the market that not everybody is in. But we've found the top of the market is bigger than other people thought.”-- Economist Editor-in-chief John

New York Times demolishes its "pay wall", gives its content away free

The rumour was published here previously; today the New York Times threw in the towel on trying to charge premium prices for online access to its content. According to a story in Folio:, the Times dropped its paid online subscription program TimesSelect "effectively admitting its two-year attempt to charge its Web site users to access premium content and archives had failed."TimesSelect has been

GQ celebrates its 50th with 10 (!) split-run covers of "style icons"

Oh, wow, it must be nice to have a big budget. GQ, the stylish men's magazine from Conde Nast, is celebrating its 50th anniversary by publishing 10 (count 'em) 10 split-run covers showing "style icons" from 5 decades. This according to the lead story in minOnline.Before GQ launched in 1957 (then as the Apparel Arts supplement to Esquire), the typical man dressed, à la the