With the TV business reeling from the effects of Netflix’ success, Rogers Media is looking to get ahead of the game on the print side with the launch of Next Issue Canada, an “all-you-can-read” magazine subscription service.

The app-based subscription service offers consumers over 100 Canadian and U.S. magazine titles for a single price per month. Readers can consume as much as they’d like, using an interactive, intuitive interface to navigate titles and content. The app is available for iPads, Android tablets and Win8 devices and will be available to Rogers’ customers Oct. 15 and the rest of Canada on Dec. 15.

Next Issue Canada is being operated as a joint venture between Rogers and U.S.-based Next Issue Media, which was formed in 2009 as a joint venture between mega-U.S. publishers Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp and Time Inc.

The Next Media Canada launch comes at a critical time for Rogers, which is currently in the midst of leadership changes on a number of fronts, including the replacement of CEO and president Nadir Mohamed with British import Guy Laurence, and major changes on the executive side of its television business with the recent departures of longtime TV topper Malcolm Dunlop and programming exec Claire Freeland.

The launch also comes in the same week the CRTC releases its annual report on the state of Canada’s communications industry.

The number of Canadians that subscribe to Netflix increased 10% from fall 2011 to fall 2012, not taking into account the number of subscribers to the service in the year since. As of fall 2012, 17% of Canadians subscribed to Netflix. The streaming co even earned its first Emmy win last week, with its original series House of Cards netting a primetime prize for director David Fincher.

Device ownership rates also reflect the sea change in Canadian media consumption habits, with the number of Canadians owning a tablet almost tripling from 2011 to 2012 and the number of Canadians owning a smartphone jumping from 38% in 2011 to 51% in 2012. Six per cent of Canadians watched television programming on a tablet or smartphone, the report notes.

With recent audit data of 60 Canadian magazine titles shows verified circulation down 7% in the first half of 2013, paid subscriptions down 7.4% and single-copy sales down 5.4%, Rogers Media is betting – to the tune of eight figures, Next Issue Canada president Ken Whyte said Thursday – that changing the business model to suit new consumer behaviours will hedge against the decline in traditional magazine readership.

It wasn’t that long ago people scoffed at the notion of consumers abandoning pricey cable packages for a service that offered library-only programming through (at the time) video game consoles and not-very-common OTT boxes. The time may be soon too that we wonder at the notion of paying for just one or two magazines a year when we could have hundreds at our fingertips, anywhere and anytime at all.