The Western Magazine Awards, given out Friday evening, included a new category this year: Best Online Magazine. The first ever recipient was The Tyee, edging out BCBusiness, BCLiving.ca, Boulderpavement, and Wine Access. 

While Tyee content was not eligible for individual article categories or overall Magazine of the Year, the inclusion of online magazines at the event was a historic shift for the non-profit Western Magazine Awards Foundation which celebrated its 30th year putting on the competition.

In accepting the Best Online Magazine award on behalf of all who contributed to The Tyee in the past year, editor David Beers thanked the WMA Foundation for creating the category, saying that including online magazines for recognition alongside print magazines brought together "two communities with a lot of overlap." Looking out over the audience Beers noted that many print magazine journalists in the crowd had contributed to The Tyee's pages in recent years, including the winner of 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award, journalist and author Sean Rossiter.

Other 'Magazine of the Year' category winners were:

Magazine of the Year overall: Vancouver Magazine.

Magazine of the year Albert/NWT: Eighteen Bridges

Magazine of the year BC/Yukon: Vancouver Magazine

Magazine of the year Manitoba: Geez

Magazine of the Year Saskatchewan: Grain Magazine.

Best new magazine: Eighteen Bridges

Trade magazine of the year: Alberta Oil

For all 2012 Western Magazine Award winners, go here.