The education committee of Magazines Canada has two seminars in Toronto Nov. 25 and Dec. 2.
The first of them is ‘Bringing a Magazine to Life,’ an exploration of the bond between the reader and the magazine. Speakers at the Nov. 25 seminar include Saturday Night’s John Fraser, Homemaker’s Sally Armstrong, Ralph Hancox of Reader’s Digest and from infamous frank magazine, Michael Bate.
Speakers at the Dec. 2 seminar, ‘Courting the Reader,’ include Sunni Boot and Debbie King, Optimedia Canada, Duncan Bruce, Chiat/Day/Mojo and Melinda Wells DeRocher, Revlon.
Both seminars are free to members of the advertising community.
– The London Free Press has launched its Privilege Card, a marketing program designed to reward long-term subscribers to the southwestern Ontario daily by making available to them special offers and discounts from more than 100 local businesses.
More than 70,000 of the free cards are being sent out to Free Press subscribers who have signed on for 26 or 52 weeks, or to those who have agreed to pay for their subscription by automatic monthly debit.
New long-term subscribers will also receive their Privilege Card, as will subscribers who renew their subscriptions upon expiry.
The card offers a minimum discount of 10%, as well as special offers from 100 participating merchants, all of whom are Free Press advertisers. A quarterly newsletter, ‘Privileged Information,’ containing updates on new offers and advertisers joining the program will be sent to all cardholders.
– New popular music magazine SoundCan and FBM Distillery have joined forces to give subscribers to the publication a new compact disc with each issue.
Sponsored by fbm’s Russian Prince brand of vodka, a new cd will be released with each bi-monthly issue of the magazine.
SoundCan published its first issue mid-November.
On the cd, called New Stuff, are eight tracks by Canadian independent artists and nine tracks by new artists on major domestic labels.
On New Stuff Vol. 1 are such performers as Moxy Fruvous, The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Northern Pikes, Martha and the Muffins and The Leslie Spit Treeo.
SoundCan Publisher Keith Sharp says the New Stuff cd will be used as a programming vehicle to college radio and as a promotional tool for the domestic recording industry.
– And now this: in some u.s. airports, baggage carousels carry advertising.
Plans are under way to sell the idea in Edmonton and Vancouver some time next year.
– The Canadian Home Shopping Network, YTV Canada and Vision TV have formed a consortium and will be the first major broadcast networks in North America to transmit their signals using digital video compression.
chsn will convert to the digital signal Jan. 1, 1993. ytv and Vision TV will follow May 1 and Sept. 1, respectively.
The service for all three networks will be distributed from Telesat Canada’s Anik E2 satellite using transponder T3.
– Another where magazine has made its debut, this time in Paris, making it WHERE Magazines International’s first venture into a non-English speaking country.
WHERE Paris joins other where magazines in 21 cities, including London, New York, Chicago and Toronto. All 21 magazines have a combined circulation of one million copies a month and provide information to 30 million travellers a year.
Like all where magazines, WHERE Paris is published in English and offers information on fashion, food, nightlife, museums and more.
In all where cities, the magazines are placed in hotel rooms or distributed by front desk staff.
WHERE Paris is being published bi-monthly to begin with distribution in 116 hotels. In April 1993, it goes monthly, with an estimated distribution of 40,000 copies.
Paris gets more than 20 million tourists a year who spend $12 million a day in the city.
Before the launch of WHERE Paris , the 20th where magazine got under way – WHERE Seattle.
