With Toronto’s crack smoking mayor and the ongoing senate scandal dominating headlines both at home and abroad, surely the time is right for a satirical publication to bring Canada’s elf lords, braünnosers, gasbags and bingo callers to heel.
Frank magazine editor and publisher Michael Bate thinks so, which is why he’s resurrecting the simultaneously scandalous, scathing, salacious and scabrous publication after a five-year hiatus.
“It’s just a great time to be in the news business,” said Bate, who has brought back Frank as both a paid online and print entity. “It reminds me of the early ‘90s and the zeitgeist in the last days of Mulroney – lots of scandals going on with the Tory government, which is a good target for a satirical magazine. There are just a lot of similarities.
“We’ve had a lot of encouragement to come back,” added Bate, a former Canadian Press and CBC reporter who launched the Ottawa-based version of Frank – which ultimately went on to surpass its Halifax predecessor – in 1989. “You need a satire magazine in a healthy society.”
Operating online at FrankMag.ca, Frank will also have a limited print run with a cover price of $6.95. “We’ll go in modestly at the outset and take it from there,” said Bate, who has invested about $30,000 in time and effort to resurrect the publication, which will feature many of the same contributors as its previous iteration.
The re-launched magazine has already accumulated nearly 1,000 subscribers, about 700 of who have paid $129 for a one-year subscription (which comes with a Rob Ford “bobble belly” doll, pictured right).
At its peak in the early 1990s, Frank was selling about 18,000 copies every two weeks. With its frequently merciless attacks on political figures and media personalities, Frank was never an advertiser-friendly vehicle, and Bate isn’t making any entreaties to the marketing community this time.
“The best year in advertising we made zero – we never made money in advertising,” said Bate. “We’ve always been circulation driven, and most people aren’t going to advertise with us. If you don’t rely on advertising income, you’re not dependent on it when times go bad.”
The resurrected Frank will use the same template from 2008, which means the return of popular sections like “Remedial Media,” which chronicles the behind-the-scenes antics of Canada’s major media outlets.
Bate has kept busy since the demise of Frank. He wrote a play about the iconic country-rock star Gram Parsons called Grevious Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons and also organized the World’s Worst Film Festival.
