One-year report: we're very bullish

The Bay Street Bull is now one year old and a healthy, growing and adventurous infant.

In our first year, we distributed six issues to an ever-widening audience. From an initial print run of under 20,000, we are now up to 30,000 and plan to keep on growing. We owe thanks to our readers and the advertisers who have supported us. That’s two blue-chip bunches of people.

Every new baby needs a good start in life, and The Bay Street Bull was born with a very large silver spoon: a unique distribution system based on the client network of associated company Roltek International. Established in 1967, Roltek has become the largest independent distributor of business newspapers and periodicals to Canada’s most influential business decision-makers. Copies of the magazine are individually addressed, and Roltek makes sure they land on the right desks, along with The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times of London and The New York Times. You can find copies on some newsstands, too.

In the very first issue, in October 2004, we said that our mission was to provide a magazine for the extraordinary men and women who make up Canada’s leading business community—Bay Street. But we also reported that research proved that the term “Bay Street” was far more than just a geographical location and it certainly wasn’t confined to Toronto; it signified people who had achieved the highest levels of business success in Canada. As the first Publisher’s Note said: “It is a brand of success and sophistication with a life of its own, like no other in the world.”

We have tried to recognize that this is an intelligent, innovative and cosmopolitan audience, with interests that stretch way beyond the office and the market. So we have written about the triumphs, pleasures and challenges of those who have made it to the top, incidentally providing a guide for those who wish to emulate them. But we have also dealt with that fuller life, both in the material sense—fashion, fabulous getaways, luxury goods—and what you might call the spiritual—health both mental and physical, the arts, ethics and philanthropy.

It’s an old journalistic axiom that there are no stories like people stories. Paul Simon wrote, “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.” You could say exactly the same about any community of interests, be it birdwatchers or financiers. We’ve tried to reflect that. You’ll no doubt remember that our first cover featured Donald Trump, although we suspect you’d get a hung jury in any vote on him. And we’ve done lots of stories about other luminaries along the way, including a fascinating piece on the masterful mentoring gifts of the likes of Ira Gluskin and Tony Fell.

Have we succeeded in producing a magazine that reflects your interests and concerns? Not completely, I’m sure. Nobody ever does. But we like to think we’ve gone a long way towards our goals and we’d like to know what you think, too. Please drop us an email and let us know. And we’re now doing our own research to give us some more complete answers.

Stephen Petherbridge
Publisher
steve.petherbridge@thebaystreetbull.com