The Canadian Periodical Fund (CPF) is a Government of Canada Program introduced in the 2009 Budget to support Canadian magazines and community newspapers. It will provide $30 million dollars over the next two years to assist periodicals and will maintain existing levels of financial support to Canadian magazines and community newspapers, which is $7.75 million annually.
The CPF will support small and mid-sized titles in order to support diversity of magazines and newspapers. It is a combination of two previous funding programs: Canadian Magazine Fund and the Publications Assistance Program. The CPF will give publishers more flexibility with funding and allow them to determine where they will spend the resources. Funding will also maintain jobs in the publishing industry.
The Publications Assistance Program (PAP) is run by the Federal Government and Canada Post and is a program that assists Canadian periodicals and non-daily newspapers with offsetting their mailing costs in Canada. With PAP, publishers can keep subscription costs the same across the country because they are not paying extra mailing costs when mailing magazines across the country.
The Ontario Media Development Corporation’s (OMDC) Magazine Fund provides up to $25,000 of funding to Ontario-based magazines. In order to be eligible, publishers need to be at least 75% Canadian-owned and controlled and have a minimum of $20,000 sales revenue.
These government programs help the industry keep magazines running, which maintains jobs and ensures the existence of the Canadian magazine publishing industry in light of heavy international competition. Funding small to mid-sized magazines increases the amount of creativity, artistry and independence in the industry. However, larger publications would also benefit from more funding because they are most likely the magazines that compete with international magazines for newsstand positions and sales. The fact that the CPF is the product of an effort to streamline two funding programs shows that decreased resources may end up being allocated to funding magazines in the future. Also, some of the strict guidelines, such as with the OMDC Magazine Fund, may omit several magazines from benefiting from funding.
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