TORONTO – Through their taxes as well as their cable and satellite bills, Canadians will contribute over $242 million to Canadian TV production via the broadcast performance envelope system of the Canadian Television Fund.
More than $242 million will be injected into the Canadian television industry over the next 12 months to support programming including drama, children’s and youth, variety and performing arts and documentaries, in English and French.
The CTF allocates production funding to eligible Canadian productions through its broadcaster performance envelopes (BPEs) and its special initiatives streams. Of the CTF’s total program budget of $265 million, English-language envelopes total $167.7 million, and $74.5 million has been allocated to French-language envelopes. The remaining funds will be allocated to development financing and through special initiatives for Aboriginal Production, French language production outside Quebec, Quebec regional production and versioning.
Canadian TV distributors collect and contribute the money to the CTF as their conditions of license call for. The Federal Government also kicks in $100 million annually.
As many will remember, the fund and its operation was a sore spot for Shaw Cable and Videotron earlier this year, both of whom suspended payment to the CTF for a while, only to begin paying again when the CRTC launched a task force to review the fund.
Individual broadcaster BPE allocations will be posted by April 16 on the CTF website at www.canadiantelevisionfund.ca/broadcasters.
“Stable and predictable funding is critical to Canada’s television industry. The CTF is pleased to maintain its financial commitment to support the development and production of high-quality, distinctively Canadian programming throughout the country,” said Valerie Creighton, CTF president, in a press release.
Implemented in 2004, broadcaster performance envelopes are allocations currently made to 65 Canadian broadcasters to licence Canadian independent productions. Broadcasters don’t directly receive funding from the CTF and financing is only provided to eligible projects from Canadian producers with broadcaster licencing agreements.
The television business unit at Telefilm, administers CTF project applications and began accepting applications for the 2007-2008 fiscal on March 1, 2007. For details, please consult www.canadiantelevisionfund.ca/producers.
