Toronto-based TIME Canada may have 60 solid years behind it, but that hasn’t stopped the publishing company from making changes. In this, its anniversary year, the firm has invested not only in its namesake publication, TIME magazine, but also in a dream team of affiliated brands, People, Teen People, and Sports Illustrated.

New spending is going into research, promotional partnerships with companies such as Toronto’s Alliance Atlantis, increasing staff, and enriching editorial product. In addition, sales for all publications under the TIME Canada umbrella have been taken in-house.

People, which has had a separate Canadian edition for the past two years, has recently joined PMB, and Joan Brehl, managing director of TIME Canada, says the first numbers (in PMB 2003) rank it number six among all measured magazines, with about three million readers. It was important to join PMB, she says, to give advertisers assurance that their choice of the title as an ad vehicle was a good one. (TIME Canada is already a member of PMB.)

Sister publication Teen People takes inserts from Canadian advertisers but does not yet have a separate edition, nor is it part of PMB. Brehl says all of this will likely happen down the road as it already has a Canadian circulation of 175,000 and the franchise is beginning to build.

Meanwhile, advertising sales for all TIME Canada titles are in-house now that sales for Sports Illustrated have been brought into the fold. SI has had a separate Canadian edition for a number of years but sales were managed by outside rep firms until January. Application to bring SI into PMB has been made and Brehl expects the first numbers will be available in two years.

The benefit of having all sales in-house, says Brehl, is that it’s easier to build brands.

‘We’re building the magazine category here. We think it’s important. There are not very many male publications in the Canadian marketplace and it’s something we’ve been asked about for a number of years. Bringing Sports Illustrated in-house, we’re building a brand and we’re investing in it in Canada.’

It also facilitates package deals for advertisers and integrated programs that bring together the print titles with online properties such as timecanada.com, hosted on AOL, as well as other affiliated companies such as Warner music, home video and theatrics.

Brehl says the Life brand had a strong readership in Canada when it was a weekly and its revival in the U.S. could also mean its return to Canada. Life is being relaunched as a Sunday supplement in newspapers in the U.S. and depending on the results, she says it could also be resurrected here.

Finally, at the company’s flagship publication, the stamp of TIME magazine’s new editor, Michael Elliott, and the company’s investment in editorial are already visible.

Brehl says, ‘He is bringing more international news to the Canadian marketplace and taking the Canadian story outside of our borders when appropriate. A good example would be our coverage of SARS, with a cover story and cover package that was carried around the world. We’re going to see more investment in that, as well as in culture and the arts.’

Elliott, a respected journalist and international commentator who has two degrees from Oxford, took over as editor of TIME Canada in February.