About Hello! Canada

Hello! Canada

Hello! Canada is a Canadian weekly celebrity and entertainment magazine, published in Toronto as the licensed local edition of the Spanish ¡Hola! magazine brand. Launched in September 2006 by Rogers Media, it covers Canadian and international celebrities, royal news, entertainment and lifestyle with the glossy, authorized-access style of the global Hello! franchise. Since March 2019 it has been published by St. Joseph Communications.

Overview

The magazine is a weekly celebrity title in the classic Hello! mould: exclusive photo features, celebrity homes and weddings, royal coverage, red-carpet reporting and entertainment news, with an emphasis on authorized, cooperative celebrity journalism rather than paparazzi confrontation. Its ISSN is 1911-3110, and its digital home is hellomagazine.com.

The Canadian edition was licensed as the local version of Spain's ¡Hola!, the entertainment magazine brand that originated the Hello! franchise. Before the Canadian launch, the British edition Hello! was distributed directly in Canada; that distribution was discontinued when the Canadian edition launched, though the Canadian magazine continued to run selected content from the British version. The Canadian franchise belongs to a global network that numbered 12 editions in 2010 and 19 by the early 2010s, with the original Spanish ¡Hola! commanding more than 8 million readers — a scale that gives the Canadian edition access to international celebrity content few domestic titles can match.

History

Hello! Canada launched with its first issue dated September 24, 2006, published by Rogers Media. The debut cover told readers exactly where the magazine's loyalties lay: a cover story on Margaret Trudeau, Justin Trudeau and Alexandre Trudeau — Canadian political royalty as celebrity. The launch made waves in the industry: its announcement prompted Torstar to offer a promotion for its competing magazine Weekly Scoop, temporarily dropping that title's cover price to just 25 cents the week after the Hello! Canada launch was announced. The franchise behind it was formidable: Spain's ¡Hola! had been created in 1944 by husband-and-wife team Antonio Sánchez Gómez and Mercedes Junco Calderón, the British Hello! had launched in 1988 under Eduardo Sánchez Junco, and by the early 2010s the brand published in 19 editions worldwide. In 2007 the Madrid office reorganized and changed the management of the Canadian version, tightening the link between Toronto and the global brand.

The early years were a struggle, but editorial and cover-price changes — and hard work, in the publisher's account — turned the title around. By May 2008 the magazine was regularly selling 50,000 copies per week on the newsstand, double its initial promise of 25,000, with a 60-per-cent sell-through that had the publisher testing a 25-per-cent increase in draw. That year Hello! Canada was named Canadian Magazine of the Year for single-copy success at The News Group's annual conference, with associate publisher Peter Willson accepting the award. Growth continued: after four years, weekly circulation exceeded 120,000 — more than 74,000 from newsstand sales alone — with an almost 11-per-cent circulation increase in the first half of 2010, at a time when much of the magazine industry was contracting. Print Measurement Bureau data put readership at 637,000, while the publisher's own figures claimed paid circulation of 140,000 and readership of 900,000 per issue, billing it as the country's top-selling magazine on newsstands and the country's only weekly celebrity title.

Editorial leadership came from within: in August 2010 deputy editor Alison Eastwood — with the magazine since its 2006 launch — was appointed editor-in-chief, succeeding Ciara Hunt, who was relocating to Boston. Eastwood, a native of England who began her journalism career there and held a BA in English Literature from York University, was credited with deep knowledge of both the international Hello! brand and the Canadian market. The brand also moved early onto tablets: its iPad edition ranked as the number-one entertainment magazine app and number-one newsstand app in Canada, offering iPad-only red-carpet galleries, royal content and behind-the-scenes video.

On March 20, 2019, Rogers announced a deal to sell its magazine division to St. Joseph Communications — seven consumer print and digital brands including Maclean's, Chatelaine (English and French), Today's Parent, Hello! Canada and the digital titles Flare and Canadian Business, plus the custom-content business. Rogers president Rick Brace said finding a good home for the storied brands in a company dedicated to publishing was vitally important — a difficult decision, but one the company believed was right as it repositioned its media business for the future. All 126 Rogers magazine staff were offered positions at St. Joseph, both English and French editions were included, and the deal made St. Joseph the largest magazine publisher in Canada. The brand's momentum has continued under St. Joseph: its 2023 media kit reported more than 685,000 print readers per issue and over 1.85 million monthly digital visitors, billing Hello! Canada as Canada's number-one newsstand title and its leading entertainment media brand on Instagram. Rogers, which had bought the Maclean-Hunter empire in 1994 and grown into by far the country's biggest magazine publisher, was exiting the business to focus on television, radio and digital; its magazines moved from Transcontinental's presses to St. Joseph's Concord printing plant.

Content

Hello! Canada's editorial content is celebrity journalism in the Hello! tradition: exclusive interviews and photo shoots, coverage of celebrity weddings, babies and homes, royal-family reporting, entertainment news and lifestyle features. The brand's editorial focus is famously royalist — the British edition once featured Catherine, Princess of Wales, on 21 consecutive covers straddling 2022 and 2023, all flattering — and the Canadian edition shares that reverent approach to royalty and celebrity. The Canadian edition balances international celebrity coverage — including selected content from the British Hello! — with Canadian stars, giving domestic celebrities the glossy-magazine treatment alongside Hollywood royalty.

The weekly frequency keeps the title current with the celebrity news cycle, and its cooperative editorial model — celebrities who open their doors to Hello!'s cameras — differentiates it from the tabloid weeklies.

Coverage & Audience

Hello! Canada is a national Canadian title serving readers interested in celebrity culture, entertainment and royals — a predominantly female audience that follows stars' lives, style and homes. Its newsstand strength has been central to its business: the 50,000-copies-a-week figure from 2008 reflected genuine single-copy demand rather than subscription bulk, and the title's Canadian Magazine of the Year recognition came specifically for newsstand performance.

Ownership

Hello! Canada was launched by Rogers Media in 2006 and published by Rogers until March 2019, when it was acquired by St. Joseph Communications as part of the seven-brand Rogers magazine sale. St. Joseph Communications, the Toronto-based publisher of Toronto Life, Fashion, Weddingbells and other titles, expressed commitment to developing and growing the acquired brands; Rogers maintained advertiser relationships for a transition period before SJC Media took over direct ad sales for the former Rogers properties in January 2021. The magazine continues to operate under licence from the ¡Hola!/Hello! brand owners.

Digital Presence

The magazine's web presence sits within the hellomagazine.com domain, the global Hello! digital platform, giving the Canadian edition international distribution for its online content. The iPad edition's chart-topping performance — number one among entertainment magazine apps and newsstand apps in Canada — showed the brand's early digital strength, with tablet-only galleries and video anticipating the mobile-first celebrity media that followed. As a weekly print title in the celebrity space, its digital operation competes with the real-time celebrity coverage of social media, entertainment sites and the stars' own channels — a challenging environment in which the Hello! brand's authorized-access exclusives remain its distinguishing asset.