The Canadian Magazine Industry Canadian magazines interpret the world from a Canadian point of view

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The Canadian Magazine Industry

        Canadian magazines interpret the world from a Canadian point of view. They provide a forum for Canadian ideas and information.  They incorporate consumer, literary, academic, trade and professional journals and are designed to entertain, inform, educate and provoke commentary.  The Canadian magazine industry plays a fundamental role in shaping the country’s cultural identity; however, the economic and political challenges it faces will continue to threaten the future of the industry.

        The Canadian Encyclopedia defines magazines as “paper-covered publications issued at regular intervals, at least four times a year”.  Author Fraser Sutherland expands that definition, citing magazines as “a portable receptacle containing articles of value” (Sutherland, 2).  Magazines reach people in different forms.  Paid magazines are sold on the newsstands or delivered through the mail to subscribers; magazines supplements such as TV Guide and Report on Business are included free with the purchase of a newspaper; and unpaid subscriptions or controlled-circulation magazines are free and sent to the homes or offices of specific groups of people defined as a target audience.  With rare exception, all magazines carry advertising, usually in the proportion of 60% advertising and 40% editorial (The Canadian Encyclopedia).  Magazines create demographically identifiable communities and sell those communities to advertisers.  

        It is difficult to measure a magazine’s performance.  Circulation, meaning how many copies in fact reach people, is one measure, but it is far from being precise (Sutherland, 2).  Readership is also objectionable as it is unable to measure how many readers a copy lying around in a hair salon or hospital waiting room actually finds (2).  Controlled-circulation magazines depend entirely on advertisements to keep them in business.  In the last decade, regional (especially city, such as Toronto Life) and specialty magazines (eg, those dealing exclusively with fashion, travel, food) have flourished (The Canadian Encyclopedia).  In varying degrees, specialty magazines align their readers’ “gender, intellectual interest or educational level, social status or buying habits, business or profession or hobby, political, artistic or sexual inclination” (Sutherland, 3).  

        To date, there are roughly 1400 Canadian magazines that sell 5 million copies and one billion dollars in sales each year.  As it is, 80% of magazines purchased on Canadian newsstands are foreign; less than 20% of the magazines on newsstands are Canadian.  Of that 20%, less than 7% are actually sold on the newsstand, whereas 50% are sold through paid subscription, and 33% are distributed by controlled-circulation (Skinner).  To date, the American industry ships $700 million worth of magazines into Canada each year, compared with only $10 million in exports of Canadian magazines to the U.S. (Skinner).         This trend is nothing new to the magazine industry. The story of magazines in Canada can be described as a “political saga of small independent interests struggling to survive in an environment dominated by foreign interests” (The Canadian Encyclopedia). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Canadian magazine industry did not have protection from foreign competition, and was dependent on a small readership and advertising base.  “By 1925, it was estimated that for every magazine sold in Canada, eight were imported from the U.S.” (Desbarats, 60).  The struggle to compete against foreign competition forced the industry to seek protection from the federal government time and again (58).  From its earliest decades, “the Canadian magazine industry has been torn between the desire for independence and the need for protection.  Much or its history can be described in terms of the conflict between these forces” (58).  

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        Canada’s support of the magazine industry goes back more than one hundred years, beginning with the creation of the postal subsidy.   With lower postal rates, the high costs of distributing magazines to a relatively small market over a large geographic area were alleviated (Sutherland, 12).  However, by the early 1960s, advertising rather than circulation became the driving force behind the magazine industry (12).  In 1960, Gratton O’Leary led the Royal Commission on Publications to study the “position and prospects of Canadian magazines with special attention to foreign competition” (The Canadian Encyclopedia).  The commission found that 80% of the periodicals ...

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