Small and pink – the first issue of TMG.
Born out of the the world of print magazines, CMG Online was
originally posted on the World Wide Web in June 1996, but its
bloodline goes all the way back to January 1994. This is when
The Toronto Motorcycle Guide (TMG) first hit the stores
in the Greater Toronto Area.
Subtitled "The Small Pink One" (because it was small
and pink, duh), TMG was a collection of photocopied sheets,
hand-stapled and folded in half to make a digest-sized irreverent
enthusiast's mag. The first issue included articles about the
classic Honda CB750 sohc, a story about owning a Virago 1000
(by the soon-to-be regular contributor, Sonic) and a Buyer's
Guide on some of the more popular used bikes.
Although it had to be done in between owner Rob Harris' real
job as bike mechanic at a local motorcycle salvage shop, TMG
managed to get published five times in its inaugural year, growing
slowly from a circulation of about 20 ... to about 40 (sigh).
Yes, it was a lot of work for no return, but 'arris must have
gotten some sick kind of fulfillment out of the exercise, because
in May of 1995 it made the leap from The Toronto Motorcycle
Guide to The Ontario Motorcycle Guide (OMG). By
now the circulation was up to a heady 3,000 issues, with a total
of eight issues a year. Hey, the Sept/Oct issue even had our
first ever test ride – a Triumph Thunderbird.
Piero took on the job of chief road-tester. He crashed fairly often too, setting a CMG standard.
The steady climb in circulation was given a big boost in 1996,
thanks to a local motorcycle-only insurance broker (Clarksons)
realizing the value of sending out such a cool mag to their
clients. By the end of the year, OMG was pumping out 6,500 copies
every other month. However, this year also saw the birth of
our presence on the Internet, with articles from OMG being fed
online weekly until the next issue's content became available.
1997 saw the circulation rise to 11,000 as OMG finally became
a financially sound concern thanks to local advertisers. Test
rides were now in every issue, thanks to a young Piero Zambotti
(RIP) – who would go on to become Editorial Assistant
at Cycle Canada.
But the future of OMG was to be short-lived. In 1998, Clarksons
sold their business to a larger insurance company. They agreed
to continue distributing OMG for the year, but inevitably
by the end of the year, the option to renew was not taken.
This meant that either the circulation would have to take
a massive drop, or ...
We'd make the leap from the world of print to the electronic
one!
Editor 'arris used to do the magazine in parking lots ...
And so it was that, at the end of 1998, a decision was made
to switch from the regional print format of OMG, to a purely
electronic web one. OMG was shut down and CMG Online
became the first Canadian web-only motorcycle e-zine.
Although this meant effectively starting again (i.e. no money
and lots of work), the build was relatively quick. By the year
2000, CMG was already well established as Canada’s premier
Internet-only motorcycle magazine. By 2007, we'd made the leap
to also become Canada's source for motorycle news with our
new Daily News format.
Our look and scope has evolved every step of the way and
will conrtinue to do so. This
evolution, tempered always by our original goals –
keeping motorcycle enthusiasts informed and entertained,
and telling it as we see it – has made CMG the most
popular online motorcycle magazine in Canada.
What the future holds we don't really know (okay, we do, but
we don't want to tell you how you're going to die – it's
messy). However, you can be sure that we'll keep publishing
irreverent, humorous and honest articles.
After all, if you don't take pride in what you're doing, then
why are you doing it?
No need to answer that by the way.
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