Golf Canada members will have to search a little harder to find association golf news this year.
Golf Canada has informed the contracted publishing company it worked with this past year, Canadian Controlled Media Communications (CCMC) that it will not be going ahead with publishing Golf Canada Magazine for 2018. CCMC is also the publisher of Score Golf Magazine.
“We’re pushing the ‘pause’ button for a year,” said Dan Pino director of communications for Golf Canada.
“We’re looking at the magazine and where it fits in our overall communications plan and identifying from a publisher’s perspective where costs fit.”
Pino said the magazine, which was mailed out to some Golf Canada members, and available in bulk distribution to the golfing public, isn’t necessarily gone forever.
Golf Canada magazine launched in the mid-‘90s with a local publishing company and was promoted as a member benefit. In competition with Score Golf magazine for national and selected regional exposure, the magazine grew, but conflicts escalated between the publishing company and The Royal Canadian Golf Association (now Golf Canada).
The publishing contract was terminated and legal action commenced and eventually ended with Golf Canada paying the publisher. A new contracted publisher, which was a beer publishing company, was hired and had previous ties to the new executive director of Golf Canada. Golf Canada magazine continued to publish until the contract was either terminated or not renewed.
In 2017, the first year with CCMC, the publisher of Score Golf Magazine and a competitor with Golf Canada Magazine for many years, tried to package sales to both magazines and reduced costs by changing Golf Canada magazine to only two print issues and two that were only digital.
As the publications struggled with advertising sales and Golf Canada focused on evaluating all costs, Golf Canada decided to suspend publishing the magazine.
Dan Pino said: “It’s a matter of being aware of costs from a publishers’ perspective and looking at what we can do to enhance our digital offerings and our communication tools that deal directly with our members, and to also see if the magazine comes back.”
Kim Locke, publisher and president of CCMC, said he wasn’t totally surprised that Golf Canada made the decision that it did. “I knew the bottom line wasn’t healthy.”
Locke said that Golf Canada has a new CEO and they may simply be taking their time to sort out what their priorities are.
