Periodical Fund quietly removes requirement to print funded mags in Canada

There could be a significant impact on Canadian magazine printers from the changing rules under the Canada Periodical Fund, not least of all because the government has quietly dropped the requirement that magazines receiving government funding must be printed in Canada. 

According to a posting in PrintCan, Doug Bennet, the publisher of industry trade magazines Masthead and Graphic Monthly, recently told the Toronto chapter meeting of the National Association of Major Mail Users, that

“Postal bills will be increasing by double-digits after April 1. This could be a disincentive for publishers to increase publication frequencies and page counts, especially above the 200 g threshold. It will also make publishers think twice about adding more enclosures in the polybag, particularly if advertisers aren’t willing to shoulder dramatically higher postage costs.”

At the same time, the new program may be an incentive for publishers to print more copies for newsstand distribution, since paid newsstand copies now count towards the grant calculation. “We could see a shift in strategy away from subscriptions to the newsstand, since publishers could elect to spend their grant funds on newsstand promotions,” says Bennet.

The removal of the printed in Canada rule means publishers could shop their printing in the U.S. or overseas and still receive federal funding—impossible before.