ROGERS IN PRINT RETREAT

PROMINENT MAGAZINE TITLES TO APPEAR ONLINE ONLY

Rogers Communications Inc. announced Friday a major retreat from print media, shuttering the print versions of four of its lead magazine titles in favour of more digital distribution and putting its stable of trade publications up for sale.

Beginning in January, Canadian Business, Flare, MoneySense and Sportsnet magazines will become what the company calls “content brands,” regularly publishing content online and through apps. Maclean’s, Canada’s only newsweekly magazine, will appear monthly, but continue to publish a weekly digital edition. Chatelaine and Today’s Parent, cur- rently published monthly, will be reduced to six editions a year, and follow the same publishing schedule online. Hello! Canada magazine’s print schedule is unaffected by the announcement, and will continue to print a weekly edition.

“We are going where our audiences are, and doubling-down on digital to grow our consumer magazine brands,” Rick Brace, president of Rogers Media, said in a media release.

Rogers also announced that it has put its 34 trade publications, including Marketing Magazine, Medical Post, Advisor’s Edge and Canadian Grocer, and its French-language magazines, Châtelaine, L’actualité, and Lou Lou, up for sale.