Business Innovation – Canada Periodical Fund (CPF)

The applicant must be a publishing firm producing printed paid or request circulation magazines and publishers of digital periodicals. The publishing firm and any affiliated companies must:
1. be in operation throughout the application process and until the completion of the project;
2. be majority owned and controlled by Canadians;
3. be private-sector entities, including corporations, not-for-profit organizations, partnerships and sole proprietorships;
4. have a Business Number (BN)); and
5. have its principal place of business in Canada.

Eligible periodicals
Print magazine or digital periodical must:
1. be edited, designed, assembled and published in Canada and have completed at least one uninterrupted 12-month publishing cycle before the time of application;
2. be published at the time of application, throughout the application process, and through the completion of an approved project;
3. contain an average of at least 80% Canadian editorial content in the issues published during the reporting period. Ethnocultural periodicals must contain an average of at least 50% Canadian editorial content in the issues published during the reporting period; and
4. contain an average of no more than 70% advertising in all issues published during the reporting period. Advertising content is calculated as a percentage of total content published. Note that advertorial and sponsored content are included in this calculation.

Print magazines must:
1. be printed and appear in consecutively numbered or dated issues published under a common title, at a frequency of between two and 56 issues per year, including special issues;
2. have at least 50% paid or 50% request circulation, or a combination of these equaling 50%. Indigenous, ethnocultural, official-language minority and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer or two-spirited (LGBTQ2) magazines must demonstrate paid or request circulation, but are not required to maintain the 50% threshold;
3. have an average circulation of no less than 250 and of no more than 100,000 copies per issue;
4. paid circulation magazines must:
a. have subscriptions sold at a minimum average subscription price of $12 per year; or at a minimum average subscription price of $1 per copy; and
b. have single copies and newsstand copies sold at a minimum average price of $1 per copy.
5. have either the subscription or the single-copy prices appear on the cover or in the masthead of the magazine. Indigenous, ethnocultural, official-language minority and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer or two-spirited (LGBTQ2) magazines are not required to meet the minimum average price criteria; and
6. have a total average circulation for all magazine titles published by your organization during the 12-month reporting period that does not exceed 100,000 copies per issue.

Digital-only periodicals must:
1. be available through a valid URL, an app for download, email format, or a third party publishing platform;
2. maintain a regular publishing schedule in which the majority of editorial content changes at least twice during a 12 month period;
3. contain over 50% original editorial content and not syndicated or reproduced from another website, publication or previous issues of the same publication;
4. have articles date-stamped with identified authors;
5. maintain one of the following types of verifiable circulation over six months:
a. paid subscription service: priority will be given to periodicals that maintain an average of at least 250 subscribers;
b. email-based service: priority will be given to periodicals that maintain an average of at least 1,000 registered email recipients;
c. open access-service: priority will be given to periodicals that maintain an average of at least 2,500 unique monthly visitors;
6. maintain an editorial function where the editor is named;
7. regularly present written editorial content from more than one person;
8. generate revenues (e.g. subscription revenues, advertising sales, etc.);
9. present a clearly displayed masthead or contact page that includes, at minimum, the names of the publisher and editor in addition to the postal address for the publication; and
10. have a total revenue of less than $500,000 for the publication.