No, they are not the same company...Musclemag has beenrun by Robert Kennedy, and Muscletech is owned by Iovate (parent company)... the only thing they have in common is they bth are based in Canada...
As for the many ads in all the magazines....thats how they survive...no different than any other magazine sports related or not...why are ads so annoying to people? Simply not reading them, or turning the page will pretty much take care of the problem.
As for "paying for them"...it's actually just the opposite....if there were less ads, then the cost would most likely go up for the consumer.
Again i have to reiterate the fact that when i started BB in the early nineties there were not as many ads as there are today, yet the price of the magazine was no more expensive relatively speaking than today. What did they know about funding mags then, that they dont today.
While I do apperciate a mag has to have some funding from ads, my issue is that when 45% is ads there is a problem.
As for why are ads so annoying to people chick, usually they are not, However when you have them every other page including ones that cut through articles etc it does wear a bit thin.