Carmine Starnino, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Maisonneuve, recently announced he will be stepping down to join Reader’s Digest, “Canada’s most trusted magazine.” Starnino has worked part-time for Reader’s Digest in the past, and he will now be taking on a full-time position there as senior editor. RD has been declared as being the most influential Canadian magazine ever, and whether one agrees with this sentiment or not, Starnino’s move appears to be a good one based on a recent report prepared by Hill Strategies Research of Hamilton for the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and Canadian Heritage.
To sum up, the coverage of the report by the Globe and Mail, indicated that Canadians were reading fewer magazines in the first part of the most recent decade. In 2008, 46 percent of Canadian households reported spending any money on magazines, down from 54 percent in 2001. You can find the full study on Canadians’ spending on books and magazines here. Yet despite some of the negative numbers, Reader’s Digest English-edition has been cited as the “Canadian for-pay magazine with the biggest circulation in the country.”
In place of Starnino, Maisonneuve will be welcoming in Drew Nelles as editor-in-chief. Nelles has been with the nearly decade-old publication since 2009.