Transcontinental Media will now rep the Canadian inventory of well-known websites under the umbrella of its new digital representation house.

The mediaco has augmented its existing portfolio, which includes brands such as Canadian Living and Elle Canada, to include the websites in the Demand Media publishing family, which include eHow.com, Livestrong.com and Cracked.com, among others. Demand didn’t have exclusive representation in Canada prior to this agreement.

The division will also take on the inventories of 5min Media, Soko Media, and Askmen.com.

The new business nearly doubles the reach of Transcontinental, increasing the unique monthly visitors to sites they represent from 5 million to 9 million, Dominique-Sebastien Forest, VP, new media and digital, Transcontinental, tells MiC.

‘It is a normal way for us to grow in the marketplace, complementing what we’re offering with third-party placements,’ Forest says.

The focus will be to build on the strengths – lifestyle and women’s segments – that Transcontinental has built with Elle Canada and Canadian Living.

As well as giving them increased reach, the new agreements give Transcontinental new products to offer advertisers. They had been weak on the video side, and were lacking in certain niches, Forest says. The new agreements, particularly with video-friendly 5Min, remedy that.

More announcements regarding development of the digital portfolio are forthcoming this month, with the eventual reach tally expected to hit about 12.5 million unique, Forest adds.

‘The next step is to grow the business in terms of publishers and reach, and we’ll be very aggressive in the next weeks and months,’ he says.