TORONTO – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) provided $371.7M in funding to Canadian television and digital media projects in 2015-2016, according to its bilingual annual report for the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
A total of 541 television and related digital media productions were supported through its Convergent Stream, and 104 innovative and interactive digital media projects through its Experimental Stream. This investment in Canada’s audiovisual content industry triggered a total of $1.4B of production activity, an 8.4% increase from the previous year, reads the report.
The CMF also continued with its objective of developing international opportunities for Canadian producers by renewing or developing new international incentives encouraging co-development and co-production of content between Canadian and international producers. Agreements were renewed with Belgium, Brazil, and New Zealand, and new agreements were developed with Australia and Italy.
In addition to its financial support, the CMF continued to provide industry intelligence to stakeholders, publishing 10 research reports and 67 blog posts on CMF Trends.
“Key performance indicators reveal that the CMF’s funding programs succeeded in providing valuable support for producers as they create compelling content for Canadian and world audiences. This level of support was made possible thanks to the continued commitment of our funding contributors, the Government of Canada and Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors,” said CMF president and CEO Valerie Creighton, in a statement accompanying the report. “Ongoing promotional efforts, coupled with our in-depth industry research on current and upcoming trends, have continued to benefit Canada’s content producers by fostering a positive environment for Canadian productions.”
