Rogers launching a digital all-you-can-read subscription service for magazines

TORONTO – Rogers is launching a digital all-you-can-read subscription service for magazines.

Next Issue Canada will allow subscribers to pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to new and old issues of more than 100 top magazines through a tablet app, including Chatelaine, Esquire, FLARE, GQ, Maclean’s, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Sportsnet, TIME, Vanity Fair and Vogue.

It’s $9.99 a month for access to monthly magazines, and an additional $5 a month to also get weekly magazines. The service will be available starting Oct. 15.

But the service is competing with a very similar free alternative offered by many libraries in cities across Canada — including Edmonton, Ottawa, Regina, Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec — that is run by the digital magazine company Zinio.

Rogers wireless and cable customers will get a two-month free trial of Next Issue Canada. On Dec. 15, Rogers will start offering a one-month trial to all Canadians.

A French version of the tablet app will not be available until next year.