Circulation floor on new CPF would could exclude smaller arts and literary titles
[This post has been updated] Larger titles may take a hit if ultimately the new Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) announced Tuesday holds to a $1.5 million cap on funding. That would halve the money available to some larger magazines. Missed in the early discussion (including on this blog), however, was the possible impact on smaller titles of a circulation minimum.
In addition to a ceiling, there is a suggested annual floor of 5,000 total circulation (subs and single copies). If that were to prevail, it would make ineligiblea good many some of Canada's smaller arts, cultural and literary titles. Many such have annual press runs that are much less than 5,000, let alone paid circulated copies.
[UPDATE] With the 5,000 annual floor, a quarterly with 1,250 per-issue paid circulation (copies reaching the end user) would qualify. But a quarterly with a paid circulation per-issue of 1,000 would not.
[UPDATE] The floor only applies to the main editorial granting program; the smaller project grant portion has no such restriction.
Sources at Magazines Canada however say that the details have yet to be worked out and that they will be lobbying hard to get smaller arts and literary magazines looked after in the detailed regulations of the program.
In addition to a ceiling, there is a suggested annual floor of 5,000 total circulation (subs and single copies). If that were to prevail, it would make ineligible
[UPDATE] With the 5,000 annual floor, a quarterly with 1,250 per-issue paid circulation (copies reaching the end user) would qualify. But a quarterly with a paid circulation per-issue of 1,000 would not.
[UPDATE] The floor only applies to the main editorial granting program; the smaller project grant portion has no such restriction.
Sources at Magazines Canada however say that the details have yet to be worked out and that they will be lobbying hard to get smaller arts and literary magazines looked after in the detailed regulations of the program.
posted by D. B. Scott at
3:12 pm
5 Comments:
This 5,000 minimum presumably refers to the annual paid circulation, not per-issue paid circulation. That is, quarterlies with paid circulation lower than 1,250 copies per issue would be threatened.
Which is still potentially worrisome, for there are many culturally important magazines that have very small circulations.
We can only hope that such criteria are still open for discussion as the CPF takes shape.
The level of funding per magazine apparently is based on the number of readers. How will readership be determined? Will annual paid circulation be used to determine readership?
This would be very bad. In order to get 1250 copies to "reach an end user", you would have to print 2500 to copies assuming your sell-through is at least 50% on newsstands - or you have a very high dedicated subscriber base...
This will shut out a lot of small magazines as well as discourage new growth of magazines - isn't that against the CMF mantra?
Regarding which part of the granting program this "floor" applies to is slightly reassuring, but since this program will be replacing the PAP as well as the CMF, that's small consolation (since postage costs for small mags will be increasing hugely in the absence of the PAP).
It's not my intention to reassure people, so much as inform them.I don't underestimate what the loss of PAP means and that the loss of any funding at all for small titles adds insult to that injury. What the industry will need to do now is to demonstrate the damage that is going to be done and through negotiation try to mitigate it. What has to be remembered is that Heritage came up with this plan after considerable "roundtable" discussion over the past year -- and went ahead, anyway.
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