One of the largest media conglomerates in the u.s. is scheduled to publish the first Canadian edition of one of its best known trade magazines Aug. 23.
Fairchild Publishing in New York will mail Sportstyle Canada to more than 11,000 retailers across the country, and will distribute extra copies of it at the Canadian Sporting Goods Association trade show in Toronto Aug. 29-31.
Diane Langhorst-Zaow, associate publisher of Sportstyle, told Strategy in an interview from Manhattan, Fairchild has thoroughly examined federal magazine publishing regulations and is certain all necessary conditions have been met.
However, another u.s. publisher, Penton Publishing in Cleveland, has agreed with Revenue Canada to drop plans to put out in this country a single issue of the u.s. version of Hydraulics & Pneumatics.
Michael Ference, business manager for Hydraulics & Pneumatics, says the single issue was slated for September and would have had 16-24 pages of Canadian content bound into it.
Ference says extra copies of the magazine were due to be distributed at a trade show in Montreal that month.
According to Revenue Canada, Hydraulics & Pneumatics was in hot water last year for doing the same thing with the magazine to coincide with a trade show in Toronto in October.
Content
The editorial content of Sportstyle Canada, Langhorst-Zaow is careful to point out, will be all-Canadian with Canadian stories on sports apparel, footwear and equipment. As well, it will use Canadian photographs and Canadian fashion shoots.
The first issue of the new tabloid should have 28-32 pages, and a 50-50 editorial-to-advertising split, she says.
Sportstyle Canada will be printed in Ontario, Langhorst-Zaow says, although she declines to name the printers bidding for the contract.
The editor of Sportstyle Canada will be Brian McCarthy, based in Fairchild’s offices on Manhattan’s Lower West Side.
Langhorst-Zaow says Fairchild is the publishing division of Capital Cities Communications.
The conglomerate owns abc, the cable sports network espn, more than 200 u.s. newspapers, 11 trade publications including Sportstyle and Women’s Wear Daily, and one consumer title, the posh women’s magazine, W, she says.
Langhorst-Zaow says the second issue of Sportstyle Canada is due in January, and Fairchild has plans to make it a quarterly publication.
According to a Fairchild advertising flyer, a full-page ad in Sportstyle Canada will cost $6,000. If an advertiser takes ads in the August and January issues, the price drops to $5,000 each, it says.
Langhorst-Zaow says the response to Sportstyle Canada by manufacturers has been ‘very, very good.’
She says Fairchild saw an editorial gap in the Canadian sports goods market and decided to fill it with a Canadian version of the 15-year old tabloid Sportstyle.
Neither Maclean Hunter Canadian Publishing nor Southam Business Publications, the country’s two largest trade publishers, publish a sporting goods/apparel magazine.
In the u.s., the twice-a-month Sportstyle can have anywhere from 28 pages to 200 pages, says Langhorst-Zaow, with the current edition being prepared for the National Sporting Goods Association trade show having 170 pages.
Fairchild maintained a Canadian bureau in Toronto for some years, says Sportstyle’s associate publisher, and notes at one time there was even a Canadian version of the garment industry’s Bible, Women’s Wear Daily Canada.
A Fairchild staffer also filed copy from Toronto for the company’s mining industry paper.
Langhorst-Zaow says Fairchild will use its informal network of Canadian freelance journalists to write for Sportstyle Canada.
Revenue Canada says it was not aware of Fairchild’s intention to come north of the border with Sportstyle Canada, but noted under current legislation the publisher is doing nothing wrong.
The first Canadian edition of Sportstyle Canada comes just a month after a federal task force delivered its interim recommendations for the magazine industry.
Ottawa set up the task force in the wake of the controversy over the Canadian version of Sports Illustrated.
Task Force
The Task Force on the Canadian Magazine Industry recommended the federal government make clear its support for the magazine industry with particular reference to split-run or ‘Canadian’ regional editions.
Further, the task force says the Related-Business Guidelines under the Investment Canada Act should be amended to clarify the situations of magazines not already published here.
Jean Charest, deputy prime minister and minister of Industry and Science, told a press conference in Toronto recently investment in a magazine by a foreigner already publishing in Canada is considered an investment to set up a new business, not the expansion of an existing business.
This means, said Charest, such investments are subject to notification and review under the Investment Canada Act.
The government’s moves are not retroactive and will not affect the Canadian version of Sports Illustrated.
Sandra Berry, managing director of Time Canada, part of the Time-Warner group which owns Sports Illustrated, has confirmed the company will publish 12 issues of its Canadian version in 1994.
The first couple of issues will feature coverage of the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, Berry says.
