Is Masthead going to cover the sales that happened of the other Rogers B2B titles? Medical Post, Marketing, Canadian Grocer. Pretty well known magazines that were sold.

Indeed, Vstdenis ... fortunately none of the others have responded by folding up their tent and running away.

Let's not forget the massive hike in the publications mail postage rate this year. That has been a particularly hard pill to swallow for many Canadian magazines.

Anon 14 ... that is true ... but the core problem remains simple mismanagement on the part of Rogers. Once they began slashing costs and forcing out the talented people, the writing was on the wall - at least for anyone bright enough to read it.

Heard rumours that some of the magazines will be finding out this week if they or where they have been sold to.

"1) the ad agency's media departments are all run by 20-something year olds weaned onto digital, who are uncomfortable selling print to their clients"

That's the elephant in the room...not just in print either...the un-experienced ad buyer trying to target millennials who have no disposable income. They move around from medium to medium. No one knows where the audience is on any given day (in large numbers). Print subscribers are a captured audience...fact!

Rogers was 'publishing-curious' when it bought M-H. It believed all the content created by M-H could be monetized by offering it to subscribers through their various broadcast and cable outlets. They're still trying to figure that strategy out.

Zaphod - Rogers acquired MacLean Hunter in 1994. If they didn't want the publishing arm, they would have sold it off 22 years ago.

Rogers never wanted the publishing business. It wanted MacLean Hunter's cable business. But MacH refused to un-bundle the businesses. So Rogers ended up owning a division it didn't want and had no idea how to get certain cost centres in the publishing business to cut their runaway expenses. As a result, it concentrated cuts in the smaller trade titles, which actually made money and subsidized money burning titles like Flare and Chatelaine, and destroyed the entire operation in the doing.

Rogers should have just have stayed as a cable and wireless company. They never had publishing in their blood.

I notice, in the release, a Rogers executive said:

"It's been clear for some time now that Canadians are moving from print to digital, and our job is to keep pace with the changes our audiences are demanding…..”

First of all, it’s not necessarily what their audiences are demanding. Yes, there is a shift and subscribers want choice with how they receive their information. But it’s BS to say their audience doesn’t want print….this decision is primarily client, agency and bottom-line driven, not subscriber/audience driven.

What has actually happened with Rogers' titles is that:

1) the ad agency's media departments are all run by 20-something year olds weaned onto digital, who are uncomfortable selling print to their clients,i.e.: Rogers’ potential advertisers. Rogers should educate their sales force and sell the strength of print to their clients directly, not via the agencies who will take the path of least resistance with clients.
2) Client’s budgets are shrinking and digital advertising is cheaper than print.
3) Clients and agencies feel digital is more easily measured (ROI) which is baloney and the publishers, agencies and clients spend their time filling out reports to superiors citing 1000s of thousands of meaningless impression reports pulled from questionable readership metrics reports.
4) Rogers have seen a decline in print advertising revenue and can’t make $$$ off their magazines now because they have so much overhead expense, so they just pull the plug on the print edition and blame changing audiences.

Subscriber now looks for choice with how they have their information delivered and that’s why savvy, more nimble, smaller publishing companies have adjusted their publishing, distribution and information delivery model over the years to give readers that choice.

My humble opinion.

Anon 8 - what they meanto to say is that Canadians spend an average of 40 million minutes per month online with Rogers trying to resolve customer service issues.

I'll admit I got a C in statistics, but this bullet point seems a dubious achievement given there are roughly 34 million Canadians and about 2/3 of those are old enough to read:
"Canadians spend an average of 40 million minutes per month online with Rogers magazine brands."

Good luck. Print advertising dollars replaced by digital pennies as the saying goes. Ask the Toronto Star and National Post how print is going for them. While your at, ask the shareholders.

No need for snide remarks, Anon 1. Who didn't see this coming? Content is king, and crap journalism just won't cut it. These results were inevitable.

This fails to mention the trade publications, which have been quietly for sale for years but now are officially on the block. Rogers stopped caring about those brands several years ago, and a sale is the best thing that could happen to them - provided the buyer is prepared to make investments to cover for the deferred maintenance under Rogers' watch.

Annonymous, you are living in the past, you are right in one respect, print media will never completely go away but it will become a small part of a magazines future.And readers will pay through the nose to continue receiving a printed version. I would venture to say that when one is faced with a $200 charge to get four issue a year, the printed version will not last long. We have some great examples of excellent digital magazines out there and they will only continue to get better. We are able to do so much more with a digital version of a magazine because we are not restricted by a printed paper product. So like it or not the future of digital magazines is a good one, allowing us to push the boarders of creative possibilities and still produce a trusted product that everyone can enjoy. I know many are still not sold on a completely digital product but the marketplace will determine it future when mailing costs and printing cost make it impossible to continue to provide a printed product.

Print media will never die and in my opinion will always be better. Why? The internet is full of untruths. Readers do not trust the internet. Anything goes. As with twitter some posts are taken as a hoax.

When email first came to be there was an unwritten rule about using email to advertise. It was a big no no. Do you remember that? Now, we even get spammed by people we know; Internet news has become advertising. (Larry King!) Print media used to be very clear on letting the reader know they were reading an ad. It seems the rules have changed. Even journalists are pushing crap. People are not stupid. Print media is king and will return as king as the most trusted format. People respect the time and money it took to produce.

A note pad and pencil is still faster than an iPad or smart phone. Paper in your hand is easy and thorough; like reading cover to cover without that feeling you've missed something in a mess of digital nonsense.

Print media is the best and will see a return when people realize there is nothing like something real in your hands. The internet is full of untruths and readers do not trust what they find. Anyone can say anything. An example of what monster we have created is when email first came to be there was an unwritten rule about using email to advertise. It was a big no no. Now? Spam you do not trust. Internet news stories are now ads. The print media was very clear on eating the reader know it's an ad. It seems the rules have changed. Even journalist are pushing crap. Larry King. People are not stupid. Print media is king and will return as king.

Whaaaat? No snide remarks yet?