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Now Magazine co-founder Alice Klein says it’s exciting for the magazine to enter the next stage of its evolution with a young and ambitious media company that is committed to maintaining its independent voice while realizing its potential for growth.

Klein founded the magazine with Michael Hollett in 1981 with a stated vision around social transformation, with special commitments to economic, personal and ecological well-being based on sharing and empowerment for all.

The publication is the second for Toronto-based Media Central, which was founded earlier this year and launched the cannabis-focused online site CannCentral in September.

Kalish said there are no immediate plans to change the Now brand or editorial team, and that they don’t want to affect the voice and tone of the publication, but that it plans to add new content categories and integrate the publication with CannCentral.

The cash deal for Now Magazine includes a $1-million payment contingent on Now achieving some metrics within a year of the deal closing. In Now’s most recent fiscal year, it reported a loss of $834,352 before deductions on revenue of $4.15 million.

Kalish said he expects to bring Now Magazine, combined with CannCentral, to profitability by the latter half of next year, in part by making better use of the magazine’s apparent reader demographics that lean towards “highly creative, upwardly-mobile, socially conscious people.”

“This is a very targeted audience, this is a very concentrated audience,” he said. “It’s not like we’re a national newspaper trying to be all things to all people.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2019.