It’s official: litmags to be cut out of CPF funding

QUILLBLOG

By Stuart Woods
August 6, 2009
3:23 PM

Filed under: Quillblog, Canada Periodical Fund, litmags

No related posts.

There will be no exceptions for small literary and cultural magazines under the new Canada Periodical Fund, the department of Canadian Heritage has confirmed. In a letter to The New Quarterly managing editor Rosalynn Tyo, minister James Moore states that a 5,000 annual circulation minimum, first announced last February, will not be repealed, and nor will small, culturally significant magazines be given any special treatment. From his letter (via Canadian Magazines):

The CPF will support a broad range of periodicals, but it will no longer offer support to titles that sell fewer than 5,000 copies total per year, or specialized support for arts and literary magazines, including those that sell fewer than 5,000 copies a year. A recent evaluation of our existing programs found that specialized funding for arts and literary magazines currently offered by the Department was duplicating the funding offered by the Canada Council … I trust that this information is useful.

If you ever needed an excuse to subscribe to a couple (dozen) litmags, this would be it. As Tyo explains, the loss of Heritage monies will have a devastating impact on TNQ‘s finances.

The Canada Council does indeed support arts and literary publications; however, what the Council provides TNQ is operating support. All of the annual Council grant funding (for which we compete every year — it’s not a ‘given’) we receive goes directly to paying our contributors and printing our magazine. The funding we had been receiving from the programs the CPF is replacing was directed to subsidizing mailing costs (by the Publications Assistance Program) and to one-time business development projects like promotional direct mail campaigns (by the Canada Magazine Fund).

It’s worth pointing out that under the new funding regime, litmags are still eligible for the $1.5-million Business Innovation fund, which is aimed at magazines with limited access to capital and has no circ requirement. Still, that fund is a small fraction of the CPF’s total budget ($75.5 million), and it’s unlikely to make up for the shortfall small magazines can expect to face in the new year.

For background on the CPF, and the grassroots movement that has sprung up to oppose it, see Q&Q‘s past coverage.

Paul

Interesting to see that in the Dept. of Canadian Heritage’s Publications Assistance 2007-2008 Funding Programme, these are some of the amounts disbursed:

Arc $1,248
Antigonish Review $1,771
Canadian Literature $855
Canadian Poetry $56
Descant $3,669
Fiddlehead $1,618
Malahat Review $1,627
New Quarterly $1,509
On-Spec $618
Quill & Quire $17,102
Canadian House & Home $1,405,616
Canadian Living $2,928,854
Chatelaine $2,572,896
Elle Canada $662,888
Fashion Magazine $634,960
Flare $685,686
Homemaker’s Magazine $619,175
Style at Home $977,879

With so much money needed to keep Canadians supplied with vacuous & sleazy lifestyle magazines, what else can the government do but cut arts funding? The alternative is checkout aisles stocked only with gum and breath mints – a future that we dare not imagine.
Meredyth Young

Dying to know what Canadian Poetry did with the $56 bucks and shocked that House and Home receives so much…
Thanks for the insight.
Von

Canadian House & Home $1,405,616
Canadian Living $2,928,854
Chatelaine $2,572,896
Elle Canada $662,888
Fashion Magazine $634,960
Flare $685,686
Homemaker’s Magazine $619,175
Style at Home $977,879
should get no funding. They should have to make it on their own steam via subscribers and advertisers. Imagine using tax payers hard-earned dollars to fund fluff like this.
ol’ b.

A good point Paul. I wonder what their thinking is. Maybe that giving Canadian Living $3 million a year allows them to generate , say, $10 million in ads and subs? I don’t know the numbers.

I’d love to see the lit mags make lemonade out of this. Maybe get together and publish something that would get 5K subscriptions. A super lit mag of sorts.
Paris Elizabeth Sea

Here’s another way of looking at it:

Transcontinental Publications Inc. = Canadian Living $2,928,854 + Elle Canada $662,888 + Homemaker’s Magazine $619,175 + Style at Home $977,879 = $5,188,796

Rogers Publishing = Chatelaine $2,572,896 + Flare $685,686 = $3,258,582

House & Home Media = Canadian House & Home $1,405,616

St. Joseph Communications = Fashion Magazine $634,960

This is, of course, just a sampling of the commercial magazines owned by large media companies receiving funding.
So, is the Government buying the media, or what?
http://www.onspec.ca Diane Walton

For the record, the Publications Assistance Program is a subsidy for the costs of mailing our magazines to Canadian subscribers. As a small circulation lit magazine, On Spec will lose out on that when the CPF comes into being. The BIG problem is the fact that another program, the Support For Arts and Literary Magazines grant is also being absorbed by this new Periodical Fund, and we’d stand to lose several thousand dollars, as will virtually all the small arts and lit mags in the country. This will hurt.
http://lemonhound.blogspot.com SQ

Canadian House & Home $1,405,616
Canadian Living $2,928,854
Chatelaine $2,572,896
Elle Canada $662,888
Fashion Magazine $634,960
Flare $685,686
Homemaker’s Magazine $619,175
Style at Home $977,879

Why are these Magazines receiving any funding whatsoever?

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Latest issue: January-February 2012

Books of the year

Click to see Books of the Year 2009 package

Book Pictures

Do you have great photos from a recent book event in Canada that you'd like to share with us? Submit them to the Quill & Quire Flickr pool and they'll show up here.

QUILLBLOG

Related posts