Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members. It's a pleasure to appear before you today.
My name is Matthew Holmes. I am the president and CEO of Magazines Canada, the national body representing Canada's magazine media, including arts and culture, consumer, and business titles. I'm joined by the chair of our board, Douglas Knight, who will share our time.
There are roughly 2,000 Canadian magazines in the market today, including 1,300 consumer and 700 business titles. Given what's facing the papers, you may be surprised to learn that this number represents an increase of 30% in Canadian magazine titles since the year 2000. This is a $2-billion sector directly creating tens of thousands of high-quality knowledge economy jobs.
Here's what you need to know. In addition to our stable numbers, we also have a committed and stable readership; in fact, the latest figures released just three weeks ago show that more than 70% of Canadians read Canadian magazines across all platforms, print and digital. This is true for all age groups, young and old alike.
There has been a history of protective legislation put in place to allow Canadians equal access to Canadian voices in the media. This goes back to before Confederation and in the establishment of Canada Post, which ensured that there was equal access to the same service, and the same postal rate charges, regardless of where you lived in the country or where you were distributing to.
Policies such as these have contributed to the fact that 80% of the base of readership of Canadian magazines comes through subscription. This is one of the highest magazine subscription rates in the world, ensuring that Canadians remain major consumers of Canadian content, even though U.S. imports have historically dominated newsstand displays.
Magazines Canada feels that we must maintain our current policy framework for magazine media, including the Canadian periodical fund, to guarantee that Canadian content and voices continue to reach their audiences.
Finally, as we grow new audiences on new digital platforms, it's important to know that the magazine sector in Canada has been an absolute leader in digital innovation. Upwards of 90% of our members are publishing on digital platforms, often on multiple digital platforms. We even developed the country's first digital newsstand in partnership with Zinio years before Apple or Texture launched their products.
The question is not whether magazines are print or digital. With 92% of Canadian readers still choosing print as part of their reading experience, the question instead is how to support both print and digital.
To speak more to these issues, I'd like to introduce the chair of the board of Magazines Canada, Douglas Knight, president of St. Joseph Media, publisher of numerous Canadian magazines and digital properties, including Toronto Life, a former publisher and CEO of various Canadian newspapers, and founder of ImpreMedia, the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States.
Doug.