Circ eligibility under Canada Periodical Fund reduces from 5,000 paid a year to 3,500

The Department of Canadian Heritage has  reduced the required number of paid copies a magazine has to circulate in a given year in order to be eligible for application to the Canada Periodical Fund. Previously, the floor was 5,000 copies, which often made it very difficult for small literary and cultural quarterlies, for instance, to meet the threshold. Now, they must have sold at least 3,500 paid copies through subscription copies and single-copy/newsstand copies during the financial year. So, a 30% decrease. And aboriginal, official language minority, ethnocultural and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) magazines must have sold at least 2,000 paid copies. 

(Some may recall that in June 2010, director of periodical publishing and programs from the Department of Canadian Heritage told a session at the MagNet conference said that magazines falling under a 5,000 copy-a-year threshold were "micro magazines"  and that the costs of servicing very small arts and cultural publications (roughly 50 of which became ineligible under the threshold) outstripped the benefit to Canadians of their tiny circulations. The CPF was basically an “industry support program” and that his department made the decision that the programming was intended effectively to support magazines as viable businesses.)