A saturated market and a fall in advertising revenue has prompted the closure of six of TVA Publications’ magazines.
The move is part of the publisher’s push to consolidate and focus more on its best-selling brands. Six French-language titles will be eliminated, including 150 plans, Animal, Décormag, Le Lundi, MOI&cie and Signé M cease publication.
One of those publications – Décormag– was among the Transcontinental Media titles that the TVA group picked up exactly a year ago for a collective price tag of $55.5 million.
The media company says that it can produce more compelling work for advertisers if it focuses on its flagship titles, highlighting 14 brands in that list, including ELLE Canada, Canadian Gardening and The Hockey News Magazine.
TVA Publications has 60 brands at the moment and the company says the strategy does not reduce its commitment to the print medium. The decision was taken to give advertisers a more focused way to reach targeted demos, said Lucie Dumas, VP and publisher, magazines group at TVA Publications in a press release. “It should be noted that we will maintain a strong presence in every segment – fashion, home decor, cooking, entertainment, etc. – in order to continue meeting the needs of our loyal readers and advertisers.”
The latest Vividata survey shows that the cross-platform readership of TVA brands sits at 10.8 million readers, of which 3.2 million readers are tied to its French-language titles.
Vividata numbers from its January to June 2015 report for home decor publication Décormag showed an average issue audience of 586,000, with an average issue audience of 533,000 for print and 136,000 for digital.
Le Lundi, which is a lifestyle publication targeting women over 40 years, has an average issue audience of 340,000, with a print average issue audience of 317,000 and 92,000 for digital.
Quebec personality Patricia Paquin’s lifestyle magazine, MOI&cie had an average issue audience of 573,000, with a print average issue audience of 490,000 and 171,000 for digital.
Finally, cooking magazine, Signé M had an average issue audience of 491,000, with a print average issue audience of 325,000 and 305,000 for digital.
The other two publications were not measured.
