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NOW Magazine)
NOW is an alternative newsweekly in Toronto, Canada. While officially named NOW Magazine, it is physically a tabloid-sized newspaper, printed on newsprint. It is distributed for free at circulation points in Greater Toronto, particularly in downtown Toronto. In 2005 its readership was independently measured to be approximately 406,000, an increase of 11.5% from 2004.
NOW was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein along with several other former members of the Socialist League (also known as the Forward Group) such as Wayne Roberts, the former editor of Forward. While vaguely left-wing, NOW was intended not as a socialist paper but as an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage. With rare exceptions, it endorses members of the New Democratic Party for federal, provincial and municipal office.
Partly financed by extensive personal ads and sexual service ads, NOW became the subject of an unprecedented and unusual police raid on August 31, 1990. NOW 's publishing company was charged with solicitation —"communicating for the purposes of prostitution" — through the "sex ads." The charges were eventually dropped.
The Toronto Star launched eye weekly in 1991 as a competitor to NOW. However, NOW has continued to be the more widely-read publication.
NOW is also a central sponsor and its owners hold an ownership stake in North by Northeast, a major annual music festival in Toronto.
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