TORONTO – The Canada Media Fund announced today it will invest nearly $366 million in Canadian television and digital media production in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
The CMF, which earlier this week announced it has restructured its leadership, is transitioning “to become a content-centric, platform-agnostic global content fund,” a press release explains.
“The challenges of the past few years gave us all pause to reconsider many things,” said Valerie Creighton, president and CEO, CMF, in the press release.
“These changes created new opportunities. New ways of thinking and of working. We needed to hear from as many of our stakeholders as possible on what positive change for our industry would look like and the CMF’s role in support of the industry. Not only a year ahead, but well into the future. This led us to our most ambitious consultation process to date. We heard from close to 1,000 stakeholders on the change that was needed for CMF to remain the reliable partner it has always been to our clients,” Creighton said.
“Considering the significant industrial disruption of the last two years, the upcoming legislative and regulatory changes through Bill C-11, our focus for this year will be on flexibility to the extent possible and predictability, until a new CMF program model is introduced and the larger legislative changes to Canada’s screen-based industry are implemented.”
Among the changes CMF is making for 2022-2023 is an expanded definition of “Diverse Community”. The new definition will now include the 2SLGBTQ+ community and Persons with disabilities, along with Indigenous Peoples to Canada and Racialized Communities, which were the focus of the first year of the fund’s equity and inclusion strategy.
CMF also announced today it will formally roll-out its new self-identification system, Persona-ID, this year. Persona-ID “will measure and monitor the demographic representation and participation of all individuals with ownership and control on CMF-funded projects and key personnel on CMF-funded projects,” according to the press release.
Participation in the process is voluntarily, however “it will be a necessary step for all directors/shareholders and key personnel on applications for a program with a CMF Diverse Community or gender initiative.”
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