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Federal Funding Notes from Canadian Magazines Town Hall Meeting

Date: 14th July 2021

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Canadian magazines town hall meeting about the $31.5 million in additional funding for the industry on Thursday, 8 July, 2021. An overview of the meeting is below. If you have specific questions about your ATP top-up, or applying for recovery funding, please reach out to CPF program staff or your program officer directly.

Aid to Publishers Stream Top Up – Canada Periodical Fund

Individual titles that receive Aid to Publishers support will receive a 13% top-up on your 2021-22 contribution amount. This is part of the stream entitled, Recovery Fund Stream 2, Investing in the Recovery. You will receive this top-up in the form of a supplementary payment / cheque issued to each title you publish that receives an ATP contribution. The total budget allocated to this is $10 million.

Key Points:

  • You can expect the money to be deposited in your bank account (if you have direct deposit set up for this) within the first 15 days of August 2021.
  • Please monitor your email—especially if you are going to be on vacation between now and mid-August—because you will receive an email from the CPF asking you to formally accept the additional funding. You need to respond to this email and accept the funding in order to receive the funding. If you receive ATP for more than one title, you will receive an email for each title and you will need to accept the additional funding for each title. It’s not automatic. The email(s) will be sent to the email address the CPF has on file for your ATP application. If this is not you, please alert the person on your team whose email is linked to your ATP application(s) and be sure they check their email regularly, including their spam folder.
  • Titles that received ATP support for the first time in 2021-22 will receive the 13% top-up.

Special Measures for Journalism Renewal – Canada Periodical Fund

Formally part of the stream entitled, Recovery Fund Stream 1, Reinforcing Recovery Foundations, this is a renewal of the Special Measures for Journalism (SMJ) fund for digital, small-circulation titles and magazines that distribute free. The SMJ was part of the federal government’s emergency support measures introduced last year during the early days of the pandemic. Essentially, this is financial support for any and all magazines who are currently not eligible for Aid to Publishers. The total budget allocated to this is $21.5 million.

Key Points:

  • Even if you didn’t apply for the SMJ fund last year, you may still be eligible to apply this year.
  • The application process SMJ will be similar to the process last year – you will apply via an online portal.
  • Non-request titles will not be required to have a circulation audit done in order to be eligible.
  • The magazine needs to have been publishing for 12 months.
  • The amount of money a title receives will be based on eligible editorial expenditures in your last completed fiscal year.
  • Magazines need to have at least 80% Canadian content (content written by Canadians, not content about Canada).
  • Ethnocultural magazines are required to have 50% Canadian content.
  • Shareholder or owner dividends and non-editorial staff wages are ineligible. But it’s otherwise flexible and includes expenses for part- and full-time employees and contractors: editors, writers, translators, proofreaders, photographers, designers, journalists, illustrators and videographers.
  • Funding is on a per-title basis. If you publish more than one title, you’ll need to fill an application for each magazine
  • The amount of money an individual title receives will be capped at $150,000. There will also be a minimum funded per title amount of $1,500.
  • The application guidelines currently being finalized.

Key dates to put in your calendar:

  • Third week of September: Application guidelines will be published.
  • End of September: Portal will be open to accept applications.
  • End of October (or four weeks after the portal is open to accept applications): Deadline to apply.
  • End of November: Successful applicants will receive funds.

Eligible Expenses – Special Measures for Journalism

The SMJ will cover the same eligible editorial expenses as the ATP. Research and audio tech personnel working on the production of podcasts are both eligible expenses.

Below you will find a list curated by Magazines Canada that includes all the eligible editorial expenses, as well as some other key definitions that were discussed at the town hall. You can also find this list online in the Glossary of the ATP application guidelines for print magazines.

It is not feasible to list every category of expense on the form, and it may not be obvious in which category certain expenses should be included. CPF program staff can help you with this. This is the easiest and best way for you to ensure that all of your eligible expenses are correctly captured on the application form.

The application guidelines for the SMJ will include direct email and phone contact information for CPF program staff, rather than a general email and phone number.

If Canada Council designates additional money in this fiscal year for literary magazines, then those titles will be ineligible to apply through this fund, otherwise literary magazines may be eligible to apply through SMJ. More info to come.

We will send an email to AMPA members when the guidelines are released and the portal is open.

Canada Council for the Arts – Additional Funds

The Canada Council is receiving $25 million in 2021-22 under the Reopening Fund stream and $50 million in 2022-23 under the Recovery Fund Stream 2. Magazines Canada has reached out to the Council to ask how much of this money will be allocated to art and literary magazines who receive core funding support from the Council. Magazines Canada will advocate for an appropriate amount of these funds to be allocated to Canada Council-core-supported members, so that magazine publishers receive their fair share. The Council has indicated that more details about the allocation of the funds will be forthcoming this fall.

For those of you who are interested, you can read the Council’s new strategic plan, as well as its “What We Heard” report on the stakeholder engagement process they undertook as they developed the plan.

Key Definitions related to CPF ATP and SMJ Funding and Definitions of Eligible Editorial Expenses

Canadian Editorial Content
Editorial content (text and photographs, graphics and illustrations) created or translated by a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada within the meaning of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act or a participant to a federal or provincial program that provides work experiences or internships to individuals. Translated editorial content by a citizen or a permanent resident of Canada within the meaning of this Act will be considered Canadian editorial content if the editorial content is translated into one of the two official languages. Translation does not modify the nature of the editorial content.

Editorial Content
The space in a periodical, excluding advertising and non-revenue pages, which consists of original text, images, photographs, graphics and illustrations.

Editorial Expenditures
Salaries/costs related to the generation of editorial pages and the activities leading to the production of Canadian editorial content, (for both print and digital content), these include:

  • Editor(s) – The person(s) responsible for implementing the editorial policy and is responsible for the editorial content of the publication.
  • Writer(s) – A person who composes thoughts and presents information in literary forms as their occupation or profession.
  • Translator(s) – An employee or third party services whose specific job requires changing words in written form for one language into a different language.
    • Translated editorial content see “Canadian Editorial Content”
  • Proofreader(s) – The function of reading text after typesetting but before printing. A proofreader compares the compositor’s typeset pages to the original manuscript.
  • Photographer(s) – The function of producing photographs as stand-alone stories or associated with a theme or story for the purpose of publication in a print or digital publication.
  • Publisher – a person that prepares and issues journals, magazines and community newspapers in traditional and digital formats for sale to the public which can include their own work and from other authors’.
  • Designer(s) – Costs associated with creative selection of graphic elements and correlating the selected text and graphics into a visually pleasing page format ready for production.
  • Illustrator(s) – A paid person that creates a conceptualizes drawing from the theme of the copy and designs images consistent with the style or format of the publication.
  • Videographer(s) – The function of producing videos for publication on an associated digital platform or a digital only magazine or digital only community newspaper.
  • Research – The systematic approach to studying materials and to ascertain details from sources in order to determine facts and/or reach conclusions.
  • Journalist(s) – A paid employee who researches and/or investigates events and produces articles which include facts, descriptions or events explanations of interest to the reader.
  • Canadian content rights purchased – Costs associated with the acquisition of Canadian editorial materials from a Canadian or permanent residents who are not salaried employees.
  • Freelance editorial work – Costs associated to a Canadian or permanent resident that are not employed by the publishing firm but provide editorial services to the publication.
  • Third party financial accounting – Accounting services provided by a company or individual who does not have a direct connection with the legal transactions of the business which involves recording, reporting, and analyzing financial transactions of the business.
    • Considered a valid editorial expenditure only for services specific to the Financial verification requirements detailed in the guidelines
  • Circulation audit report – See “Circulation report” definition.

Ethnocultural periodical
A periodical that primarily serves or is primarily concerned with a commonly recognized specific cultural or racially distinct community or specific linguistic group using other than Canada’s official languages.

An eligible ethnocultural periodical may be published in any language.

Financial year
Refers to the publishing firm’s twelve-month financial year that ends on a date within the period of April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021.

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