Michael Bate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Bate is a Canadian media entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Ottawa edition of gossip magazine Frank.

Bate was a long time Ottawa musician who worked as a radio producer and as a computer games developer. He also worked as a reporter for Canadian Press. In 1989, Bate became a partner with David Bentley to expand Frank from its Halifax roots by launching an Ottawa edition. Soon afterwards, he was named by Chatelaine magazine as one of Canada's sexiest men. The Halifax edition had started in 1987 and continued to publish under Bentley's ownership group.

Bentley eventually returned to Halifax and, under Bate's direction, the Ottawa edition of Frank blossomed in the mid-1990s. Paid circulation of the magazine peaked at under 20,000 copies nationally but it earned a notoriety that far exceeded its readership. Most infamously, the magazine infuriated then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney for a mock contest to "deflower" his daughter. Mulroney said in a television interview that he wanted to get a gun and "do serious damage" to Frank's editor. Bate defended the piece as an attempt to show that the unpopular prime minister was exploiting his daughter for political gain.

Bate purchased Bentley's share of Ottawa Frank during the 1990s and later sold the franchise to Fabrice Taylor in 2003. Taylor moved the magazine's headquarters to Toronto and said he planned to turn it into a serious satire magazine. Circulation declined after the sale and the magazine went out of business in December 2004.

Bate regained ownership of the property and started an online version of the Ottawa edition of the magazine called eFrank.ca on September 27, 2005, with a print version following in late November 2005. Michael Bate is featured prominently in the 2001 muckraking documentary film The Frank Truth which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.