SPLIT-RUN BILL GETS GO-AHEAD FROM SENATE
By Adnews Staff
The Canadian Senate voted yesterday against an amendment that would have exempted Sports Illustrated Canada from an 80% surtax on its Canadian ads, and passed intact a bill designed to protect Canadian magazines from being put out of business by U.S. publishers. Early this year the House of Commons passed a bill that imposes a heavy tax on Canadian advertising in split-run publications - special print runs of foreign magazines which have mostly the same editorial material as the original magazine but carry Canadian advertising. The bill would be retroactive to March, 1993, just before the first Canadian split-run edition of Time Warner Inc.'s Sports Illustrated hit the market. A proposed amendment to exempt Sports Illustrated from the tax was voted down in the Senate, 51 to 24. Canadian Magazine Publishers Association president Catherine Keahie told Adnews the organization is very pleased with the ruling. "We've been waiting three years for Canada to defend its split-run policy," she said. The legislation now goes to its third reading in the House of Commons.