NAICS 5131Industry group · 4-digitinternational market1 market record

Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers

SoftwarePublishing Editorial & Rights Management 513

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in publishing (or publishing and printing) newspapers, periodicals, books, maps, directories, databases and other works, such as calendars, catalogues and greeting cards. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 1,972
Under 10 employeesA: 72%

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–496449%

5–945623%

10–1933317%

20–491407%

50–99442%

100–199191%

200–499121%

500+40%

Of 1,972 Canadian establishments with employees, 72% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario73237%

Quebec46724%

British Columbia31716%

Alberta20110%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Information, US · opened 2020

79.6%

1 year

59%

3 years

45.7%

5 years

30%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 513, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

international competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 513 Publishing industries

Software publishing is where most venture-backed entry happens. Traditional publishing has declining print economics and a reader who has to be found again online.

Who sets the price: Platforms and marketplaces for software; advertisers and subscribers for publishing.
The software it runs on: This subsector includes software publishers themselves; publishers run editorial, rights and subscription systems.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Niche & Community PublishingOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

A community paper, a trade magazine or a small book list is one of the cheapest businesses in this research to start: no plant, no licence, and 1,420 of Canada's 1,972 publishing establishments employ fewer than ten people [A]. The cut is what has happened to the revenue the model rests on. Statistics Canada puts newspaper publishers' operating revenue at $1.6B in 2024, down 17.9% in two years [A]. Print advertising fell 34.3%, which is expected. The finding that matters is that digital advertising fell too — down 11.9% to $315.1M [A]. The standing argument for a new publisher was that the reader could be found again online and the advertising would follow; the agency's own series says the advertising went to the platforms instead, and publishers are now shrinking on both sides of the ledger. The industry held a 3.2% operating margin only by cutting expenses 19.1% [A] — it is being managed down, not rebuilt. Postmedia shows the same thing at scale: fiscal 2025 revenue of $431.5M rose only because it bought Saltwire, advertising grew 2.7% without it, and the year closed on a $77.3M net loss [A]. Periodicals are steadier — $1.0B in 2023, up 1.9% over two years — but expenses grew 5.2% and the margin fell to 6.3% [A]. What survives inside this group is publishing as a by-product of something else: an association's magazine, an events business with a title attached (events, conferences and trade shows were 5.8% of sales). That is a reason to own an audience, not a reason to enter publishing. Book and directory publishing were not examined. The editorial and rights software sold to publishers is screened separately at 513.

NAICS 51316 vendors named10 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 513 Publishing industries

Publishing Editorial & Rights ManagementOne thing must be true

binding constraint: market size

Incumbent Klopotek and Firebrand Technologies

Trade publishing is a few hundred houses worldwide and the academic side is already owned by the publishers themselves — Elsevier owns Editorial Manager, Clarivate owns ScholarOne. What remains is title management and rights for mid-sized houses, which is a small and shrinking buyer set. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.

NAICS 5134 vendors namedOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 7

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
Postmedia Network Canada Corp.Private	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	$432M	1/7
Black Press MediaPrivate	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	—	2/7
Glacier MediaTSX:GVC	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	—	3/7
Metroland MediaPrivate	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	—	4/7
Overstory MediaPrivate	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	—	5/7
TorstarTSX:TS-B	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	—	6/7
Village MediaPrivate	Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers5131	—	7/7

Who works here

The occupations employed in Information and cultural industries, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Managers in communication (except broadcasting) One industry 77.8%

Librarians, archivists, conservators and curators One industry 74.8%

Technical occupations in motion pictures, broadcasting and the performing arts Mostly one sector 43.1%

Library, correspondence and other clerks Mostly one sector 41.3%

Photographers and support occupations in arts and culture Mostly one sector 31%

Managers in art, culture, recreation and sport Mostly one sector 30.4%

Technical occupations in libraries and public archives Mostly one sector 29.5%

Support occupations in art and culture Mostly one sector 23.6%

Graphic and interior designers Mostly one sector 14.1%

Computer, software and Web designers and developers Mostly one sector 10.3%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 12.8%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 6.1%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 4.3%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 3.9%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 3.1%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.9%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 2.2%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 2.1%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 2%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 1.1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 72% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

5 rows sit directly beneath 5131, and 10 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
51311	Newspaper publishers	846	screened at 5131
51312	Periodical publishers	552	screened at 5131
51313	Book publishers	420	screened at 5131
51314	Directory and mailing list publishers	57	screened at 5131
51319	Other publishers	97	screened at 5131

Alongside it, under 513 Publishing industries

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
5132	Software publishers	1,808	Packaged Software Company