After entering the increasingly cluttered shopping magazine arena about a year ago, Chocolat will cease publication after its October issue, Rogers Consumer Publishing announced yesterday.
Brenda Bookbinder, portfolio director at Toronto-based PHD Canada, tells MiC that Chocolat‘s demise is ‘very, very surprising. I thought the concept of a shopping book in the shelter category really made sense when they launched.
‘Also, its publisher was Rogers, which has a lot of resources, so you don’t expect that they’re going to fold a book,’ she adds. ‘Their official line is that this is happening because of unenthusiastic ad support, but if they were having troubles, I didn’t notice. We certainly put a lot of clients into it. And there’s a lot of growth at (comparable) Canadian magazines.’

Published in both English and French, the magazine targeted high-income women 25-54 and focused on ‘decorating, organizing, entertaining and living with style,’ according to a statement on its website. While circulation numbers were not disclosed, Chocolat leveraged an innovative partnership with Canada Post to send about 260,000 free copies to Canadians who registered changes of address.