We underline that while government investment is appreciated and important, total government investment in the magazine industry in Canada by all levels of government collectively is less than 4% of the industry's value.
Federal policy on magazines is working. Over many years, Canada has developed and refined its magazine policy into quite a sophisticated set of tools. In the digital economy these tools will need refining but not replacing.
On the one hand, we have modest government investment that has garnered a high level of success. On the other hand, we have a completely open world marketplace for magazines here in Canada within which our Canadian publishers have been successful. To ensure that the success continues in the digital economy, we will need to update and refine the current tools, not replace them.
When we say that federal policy is working, here is the proof. The number of Canadian magazines continues to grow. Canadians want Canadian content, and magazines are delivering this. With this reader interest, magazines drive economic activity across Canada and create high-quality jobs.
Canadians spend about 41% of their money on Canadian titles when they purchase magazines. Canadian magazines also have 80% of the subscription market in Canada. This compares very favourably, for example, to the percentage of film time and television time devoted to Canadian content.
In this slide you see how the growth of print magazines over the last decade has parallelled the growth of the Internet. Even through this economic meltdown, magazine readership has been very steady.
In addition, magazines are read by everyone. A common theme and discussion is that young people are abandoning the print medium, but nothing could be further from the truth. The largest segment of print magazine readers are in fact people between the ages of 18 and 24. As you can see, it's pretty steady across all of the age groups.
However, as Canadians demand more access to Canadian content in new and different ways, our magazine publishers are responding. As time spent on the Internet increases, time spent on consuming other media will change. Magazine brands are responding to Canadian expectations by creating enhanced content on websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else they'll invent next week that we don't know about. We want to show you how this is evolving.
Here is an example of Canadians' capacity to work together. Magazines Canada launched the digital newsstand just late last year. With 145 titles participating in both official languages and reader response growing, the project is supported in part by the Canada Periodical Fund. It demonstrates how this public-private partnership can achieve results in a digital economy.
The digital newsstand and related websites provide Canadians with options to access Canadian-created content. These digital formats also allow publishers to enhance core content with links to related sites, government information, business opportunities, and so on.
New platforms allow smaller publishers greater reach at home and abroad. Our magazines take Canada's cultural business commerce, communities, and policy ideas everywhere in digital. An example is Sky News, a small-print circulation magazine based near Belleville, Ontario. It's devoted to astronomy, with a very dedicated print readership of about 5,000 per issue. This is typical of small niche magazines. Look at what happens in the digital age: it is now attracting astronomy geeks worldwide.
Quality Canadian content has always been exportable, and now in the digital age it is much more portable. It's early days for this digital newsstand, but it is already opening doors for magazines of all types to reach even more readers at home and abroad. This will only grow with the right public-private nurturing, and we thank the Canada Periodical Fund for its help with that.
Unfortunately, Jocelyn couldn't be here, but I have to talk a little bit about Clin d'oeil. It's a proven magazine brand with a strong market in Quebec. It's a fashion and beauty magazine that shines in many different ways. One of them specifically is that it has also become a broadcaster; it is no longer just a magazine. It is doing all the Twitter, all the blogging, and everything you can imagine, but it is also the broadcaster of a web series called “Comment survivre aux week-ends?” Now in its second season, this series has been downloaded almost 1.6 million times. The story line comes from stories in the magazine, and there are other related things. Music and other story lines are also available. It's typical of where magazines are going. They're becoming portals for all types of content: film, music, as well as long-form magazine journalism.
When we talk about platforms, we have to include face-to-face events, and Cottage Life in Ontario represents that. The story here is the value a magazine like Cottage Life brings to businesses that advertise in the magazine, true of many magazines. Because Cottage Life is read by cottagers, it attracts advertising from Canadian businesses interested in that market, as does its show. A lot of business is done by people who share in a community built around this magazine. Without the magazine, its live show, its web presence, and other extensions, a lot of Canadians would be mail ordering for cottage supplies from U.S. businesses instead of buying them from Canadians. This is a point we really need to underline: the value of brands and making business happen.
The Alberta Venture brand is a regional business-to-business and business-to-consumer powerhouse. On multiple platforms it drives business, celebrates Alberta's business leadership, and promotes Albertans who demonstrate excellence. Readers across Canada also appreciate this brand, and it puts them in touch with issues and innovations by Alberta business people.
I want to end with Hockey News on this portion, apparently because Canadians like hockey--until last night. Hockey fans have found Hockey News a very important part of their lives. Hockey fans get updates, news dailies from up-to-the-minute scores, and so on on their PDA devices. That PDA download is something in the neighbourhood of 500,000 of just the platform and 4.5 million page views monthly.
So in a world of digital platforms, print, online, TV, radio events, mobile iPads, where's Canadian content in Canadian consciousness? Right up front. Let's take a look at this one for a second. Step aside American Idol; five Canadian magazines beat out hot American TV shows like American Idol in audience, and by a long shot. Millions and millions of people read Canadian magazines.
Why are we doing so well? Once again, it's Canadian content. Our success in achieving this is in a crowded marketplace. It should be underlined that there are over 100 titles available per Canadian of all types, foreign as well as domestic, and we compete in a global marketplace right here at home.
We give a lot of credit to the Canada Periodical Fund, now in its new iteration. It has been redesigned to provide magazine content creators with the flexibility to manage funds strategically, for example, to reach Canadians and international audiences with homegrown content on multiple digital platforms. We think it's key. We would like to see it reinforced as we move ahead. We would like to see it retain its current funding level, including the $15 million the Government of Canada ensured it had going into this round. We would like to see that renewed.
To close, succeeding in a digital economy, we'd like to see a robust CPF continue. We believe the Canada Council is doing a great job moving to the digital age. We are looking for copyright reform that supports creators so they will stay in Canada while ensuring ease of access to Canadian users of our content as well as international users.
We believe in-career skills development is absolutely essential to help our competitiveness in the digital age, and we believe supporting industry collectives to drive innovative marketing distribution and monetization will really help us.
Finally, we'd like to thank you for your time. We appreciate the Government of Canada's investment, and we invite you to join Friends of Canadian Magazines in either language.
Thank you.