Yes, sell the Report

AR alumnus and Edmonton Sun columnist Michael Jenkinson also thinks that the Byfields should be open to selling The Report:

I've never believed the generally accepted wisdom that permeated the magazine's culture that there was simply no way Alberta Report would ever make money because it was too controversial and advertisers wouldn't go near it.

Because the flip-side of that argument is to believe that a right-wing magazine couldn't make a profit in Alberta. And I find that very hard to believe.

Indeed, I submit that if the Byfields would be willing to sell the rights to the Alberta Report name to someone else with a solid business plan, there's no reason why the magazine couldn't continue being the unique voice on the right that it was for so many years.

However, I do disagree with him about one thing. One of the reasons that the Report went national and changed its name was to keep the readers that it had won from B.C. Report, who might have had a hard time subscribing to an Alberta Report. Perhaps in 1999, the magazine should have reverted to being "Alberta Report" in Alberta and being called "Western Report" (with exactly the same content) in the rest of the country.

Another factor, in retrospect, would have been "How can we get the money to keep all the extra reporters and publish every second week?" Did the Byfields really have the money to do this and just not realize it? I don't know, so I will leave that for others to answer.