Thanks for the funding, but about those small magazines...

Magazines Canada’s Executive Director of Public Affairs, Jim Everson, told the House of Commons heritage committee today that while the industry welcomed recent funding announcements, it has a couple of areas of concern.

The January 27 budget announced $30 million over two years to replace the Canada Post contribution and a new Canada Periodical Fund is to replace both the Canada Magazine Fund and the Publications Assistance Program in 2010.

“The investment provides much needed stability for the sector,” said Everson. “The new program, we expect, will update the existing framework and provide greater flexibility and targeting of support.”

However, he said the industry was concerned about how the changes will affect magazines at the top end (with a funding cap) and the bottom (ending funding for small literary and cultural magazines under 5,000 annual paid circulation):

Canada’s arts and literary magazines benefited from a specific and targeted program as part of the Canada Magazine Fund. This program will not continue under the new framework. However, the design of the new program allows for special eligibility guidelines for some classes of magazines and a flexible formula of support. We will be urging the Minister to take steps to ensure these magazines’ special needs are addressed in the new program.

The program will also cap the amount of investment that larger magazines can receive under the program. These are some of the largest employers of full-time and freelance magazine writers and photographers, so we want to be sure that these cap levels are appropriate and do not negatively impact editorial investments and the growth of the magazine title. It may also be appropriate to phase-in these changes allowing publishers of these magazines to properly plan for the adjustment.

While Canada has one of the most open and competitive magazine sectors in the world with a very high ratio of magazine titles—both domestic and foreign—per consumer [he told the committee], Canadian magazines have been able to steadily improve access to Canadian magazine content relative to foreign magazines. Canadian-content titles make up about 40 per cent of magazine purchases—which is better than the Canadian share of most other cultural media.