Toronto's independent weekly - NOW Magazine - was launched Thursday, September 10, 1981 as the city's alternative voice. Starting with just five staff members, founding owner/operators Michael Hollett and Alice Klein have seen the weekly grow to become a key cultural and political voice in Toronto - and Canada - with more than 100 fulltime employees.
Hollett (Editor/Publisher) and Klein (CEO/Editor) are active participants in a team that features many of Canada's leading critics and writers, as well as fresh new voices just beginning to establish their own audiences. The weekly delivers an essential print package - echoed online - that includes a hard-hitting and progressive news section, and intelligent and fresh cultural reporting that often introduces new artists and acts to its readers, as well as the city's most extensive activity listings.
NOW is published every Thursday (though available at key downtown locations and in street boxes Wednesday nights) and distributed at over 2,000 locations in the Greater Toronto Area.
Hollett and Klein are also founding partners in the North by Northeast Music Festival and Industry Conference (NXNE), of which NOW Magazine is a key sponsor.
Both NOW Magazine and NXNE are located in an historical building at 189 Church Street, across from St. Michael's Cathedral and just steps from Massey Hall, the Eaton Centre, and the freshly revitalized Dundas Square. Parts of the building date back to the 1840s and, in the past, the building has been used as a toy factory, a hat manufacturer and a speakeasy - as well as a recording and editing studio.
The NOW Lounge - located on the main floor of 189 Church - is a popular public restaurant, bar, nightclub, gallery and 'community centre'. The site of regular webcasts, concerts, panels, comedy and more, performers and speakers have included The Stereophonics, Patricia O'Callaghan, David Suzuki, Nina Gordon, Kurt Swinghammer, Sarah Harmer, The Tea Party and Tori Amos.
