About Media in Canada

Media in Canada

Overview

Media in Canada (often shortened to MiC) is a Toronto-based online trade publication covering the business of media in Canada: how advertising time and space are planned, bought, measured and sold. Published by Brunico Communications as a sub-brand of its marketing magazine Strategy, it reports on television, radio, print, out-of-home and digital media from the perspective of the media agencies, broadcasters, publishers and marketers who trade in audiences. Its own summary of the remit is succinct: "From connection plan innovation and new ad opportunities to research and ratings, Media in Canada covers the gamut of media biz news."

The publication is digital in format — a news website paired with a daily email newsletter — rather than a printed magazine. It has occupied that niche since 2004, which makes it one of the earlier digital-only titles in Canadian business publishing, and it remains active: its homepage in mid-September 2026 carried daily stories on programmatic advertising deals, television festival sponsorships, audience research and agency appointments. For WorldNM's purposes the listing city is Toronto, where Brunico Communications is headquartered.

History

Media in Canada began in 2004. Brunico Communications' own corporate timeline records that in 2004 "Media in Canada becomes the company's first successful sub-brand," identifying it as an offshoot of Strategy, the advertising and marketing magazine Brunico had created in 1989. The timing matched the medium: the site's earliest archived news items date from September 2004, and its footer carries a copyright line running from 2004 to the present year. Where Strategy addressed the broader marketing community, Media in Canada was built for the media planning and buying side of the business, which had no dedicated Canadian news source of its own.

The publication grew up alongside the professionalisation of Canadian media buying. Its early pages tracked BBM and PMB ratings releases, the annual fall television buying season, agency-of-record contests and the comings and goings of media directors, and it developed reader-participation features such as "The New Plan," showcasing notable media campaigns, and "What's on your mind?," a forum for short opinion pieces from practitioners. In 2010 its published rate card described the website as "a paid news product" delivering information to Canadian agencies, media and marketers, noting that agency subscribers received it free — a subscription-and-advertising model it has retained in evolved form; the site today reminds readers that "subscriptions and advertising are both necessary to fund the journalism we bring to you."

Media in Canada's parent has changed around it without changing the title's ownership. Brunico, founded in 1986 by James Shenkman to launch the film and television trade magazine Playback, was purchased in 2007 by an investor group led by Russell Goldstein, who remains president and CEO. In 2016 Brunico acquired the Marketing group of titles from Rogers Communications and merged Marketing into Strategy, Media in Canada's sister publication. The title's two-decade run has made it a fixture of the Toronto media trade: rival publishers, agency networks and research firms routinely announce appointments, deals and data releases through its pages.

Content and Coverage

Media in Canada organises its coverage by the channels its readers buy and sell. Standing sections follow print, television, radio, out-of-home and digital media, along with research and ratings, marketing, and career news. A typical day's output mixes deal reporting — a programmatic partnership between a Canadian marketplace and a demand-side platform, for example — with audience research from firms such as Vividata and Numeris, sponsorship and upfront-season news, regulatory developments at the CRTC, and the personnel moves that its "Careers" coverage has tracked since its earliest years.

Two long-running features illustrate its approach. "Spotted!" documents notable campaigns and activations in the field, from charity advertising to large-scale out-of-home executions, while the "Screening Room" presents new creative work. At year end, the publication runs a "Year in Review" series in which senior Canadian media figures — agency network leaders among them — assess the year past and the one ahead. Its journalists also contribute to the roundtables staged by sister title Strategy, at which marketers, agency executives and media owners debate planning practice.

The through-line is the transaction rather than the programme: Media in Canada rarely reviews content for its own sake. It writes about content as inventory — what it costs, how it is measured, who is buying it and what the data says it delivered.

Audience and Reach

The audience is the Canadian media trade itself: planners, buyers and strategists at media agencies; sales and research staff at broadcasters, publishers and out-of-home companies; and the marketers who oversee media budgets. That is the readership the publication has consistently claimed for itself; its 2010 rate card described a product aimed first at "Canadian agencies, media and marketers," and quoted an average of 55,000 impressions per month at that time — a dated, publisher-supplied figure that is presented here as history, not as a current measure.

No current audited circulation or traffic figure for Media in Canada is published, and none is asserted here. The verifiable markers of its standing are its longevity within the Brunico portfolio, its role as the working news source quoted across the Canadian advertising trade, and the seniority of the executives who give it year-end interviews and career announcements. Its influence is deliberately narrow and deep: it is written for the few thousand people who direct Canadian media spending, rather than for a general business audience.

Digital Presence

The publication lives at mediaincanada.com. The site publishes news daily, organises its archive by medium and topic, and is paired with a daily email newsletter for subscribers; Brunico has historically tiered access so that agency professionals receive the product as part of their work while others subscribe. The site carries display advertising against its content and publishes its rate information for advertisers, and it maintains a social presence through Facebook and X, where stories are distributed to followers.

Media in Canada is also woven into Brunico's wider digital system: its stories cross-reference sister titles Strategy and Playback, its people-moves coverage feeds the group's CARDonline media database, and its journalists appear in Strategy's conference and roundtable programming. The website's archive, which runs unbroken from 2004 to the present, is itself a record of two decades of Canadian media trading — from the BBM ratings era through the arrival of programmatic buying and AI-assisted planning that dominate its 2026 coverage.

Ownership and Organisation

Media in Canada is published by Brunico Communications Ltd. of Toronto, a business-media company founded in 1986 and owned since 2007 by an investor group led by its president and CEO, Russell Goldstein. Brunico's head office is at 100–366 Adelaide Street West in Toronto. Its other brands include Playback, Strategy, Kidscreen and Realscreen, along with events such as the Banff World Media Festival.

Editorially, Media in Canada sits within the group led by Mary Maddever, Brunico's senior executive vice-president and chief content officer, who also serves as editorial director and publisher of Strategy; Brunico's company page states that she leads the teams on Strategy, Media in Canada and CARDonline and oversees journalistic policy across the company's editorial brands. The title operates with a small staff of editors and writers in the Brunico newsroom tradition: its pages have long invited tips directly from readers, publishing newsroom phone and email contacts for people moves and campaign news.

Contact and Availability

Media in Canada is available online at mediaincanada.com, where readers can follow daily coverage and subscribe to its newsletter; access arrangements for the paid product are described on the site. Brunico Communications can be reached at its Toronto head office, 100–366 Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1R9, telephone 416-408-2300. Advertising and subscription enquiries for the title are handled through the contact and advertising pages of the Media in Canada website itself.