The Future of the Record

Seven years of declining readership averaging more than 13 per cent a year have put the 140-year-old Presbyterian Record in a position where the board is having to weigh its future.

Subscriptions dropped 17 per cent last year, the largest loss since 2010 when it lost 18 per cent. “It’s a challenging situation for us,” said the magazine’s publisher and editor, David Harris, “just as it is for everyone in the church.”

Harris said the board has a long-term plan for the magazine, including plans for an endowment fund to help offset circulation revenue losses. The question is whether donors will be able to respond quickly enough.

“Thankfully, our donors have been incredibly generous over the past 11 years, and this has helped us weather the storm so far,” said Harris. “But we are going to be asking them to be even more generous,” he said.

Donations have held steady at around $150,000 annually over the past four years despite the drop in readers.

“The problem with a decline in circulation is that it affects not only subscription income, but also revenue from advertising and the annual federal government grant for Canadian publications,” said Harris.

The magazine is currently projecting a loss of nearly $250,000 in 2016. It posted a loss of about $140,000 in 2015 after having posted surpluses for several years prior to the 2011 financial crisis.

Without strong financial support from donors, Harris said the Record may not be able to continue publishing in 2017.

“We don’t want to raise a panic,” the Harris told staff at a meeting in March. “But it is also important for us to be transparent to our subscribers and to the Presbyterian Church in Canada.”

Part of the Record’s subscription decline is reflected in the PCC’s own statistics. In 2004 the Presbyterian Church in Canada had about 124,000 professing members. In 2014, that number had dropped to 93,500—a loss of more than 18,000 members or about 14.5 per cent.

The number of baptisms reported each year has also plummeted by almost 1,000 from 2,624 in 2004 to 1,639 a decade later. Sunday school pupils—the future of the church—are down by nearly 10,000 over the same period.

As numbers continue to slide, so do monies raised. Gifts to Presbyterian Sharing, the main source of funding for denominational operating expenses, is down $1,335,348 over the same decade.

Like many mainline denominations, the PCC is asset-rich and cash-poor. Discussions around the church’s pension fund have revealed that real estate and other holdings are valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, held in trust between various congregations, courts and offices of the church.

Declining revenue is the reason cited every time a congregation cuts the Record’s Every Home Plan from the budget.

The Every Home Plan was a marketing initiative begun in the 1950s, offering readers a discounted rate if a majority of members subscribed.

By the 1970s, many congregations had stopped chasing individual subscribers for their annual subscription dues and were paying the group rate from the budget. But in the 2000s, as budgets began to shrink, congregations started dropping the Every Home Plan.

“In the 20 years from 1980 to 2000, circulation fell by 35,000 to about 50,000,” said Harris. “Since then, the pace has increased, so that we’ve lost nearly another 40,000 subscribers,” he said.

Last year, seven congregations came off the Every Home Plan, representing a loss of more than 1,600 readers. Another 400 subscribers died or did not renew in churches not able to offer the discounted rate, said Harris, bringing to total loss for the year to over 2,000.

“It’s a problem affecting almost all magazines and newspapers in both the U.S. and Canada,” said Harris. “You look at once-famous publications that no longer exist. It’s astonishing.”

“The problem is worse for us because our market—the church—is losing members, and many of those members are on fixed incomes. So, it’s less money all around.

“Our hope is that we can establish a fund that will generate income to offset these losses. That would let us minimize price increases so that we can attract more readers.”

The steady decline of denominational members is, of course, part of a larger social trend. According to a 2015 Angus Reid survey, only 15 per cent of Canadians go to a weekly religious service. While 73 per cent believe in God or a higher power (down from 81 per cent in 2000), 13 per cent are adamant there is no God (doubled over the past decade).

Many congregations and individuals have also chosen to cancel their subscriptions over the years in response to articles they have not liked. As reported here before, several congregations dropped the magazine when it reported that a presbytery was discussing the issue of human sexuality in 2005. More left when the Record reported stories of ministers found guilty by their presbyteries of sexual assault.

The current conversation on human sexuality across the denomination has been heated at times and the Record has already received several cancellations from subscribers on all sides of the issue for articles that did not represent their views.

Despite the impending crisis Record staff continue to plan for 2017. To help secure its future, the Record hired Lisa Van Arem last summer to oversee fundraising and donor relations.

Congregations can still join the Every Home Plan. New subscription software allows the Record to bill individual subscribers. The congregation only needs to provide a list; the Record can administer the process.

Harris and board chair Botond Fejes will also be addressing General Assembly about the situation. “I realize many ministries are in need of funding,” said Harris. “We can only outline our situation and what we’ve been doing to address it over the years,” he said.