CALGARY – The Shaw Rocket Fund is celebrating 20 years of fuelling high-quality, Canadian-made media.
Since 1999, Shaw Rocket Fund has invested more than $220 million in 865 audio-visual programs and associated digital media content for children, youth and families. It supports creative programming in both of Canada's official languages, as well as Indigenous and various languages, on all platforms that air Canadian children's and youth programming.
When it was first established, the Fund provided top-up equity funding for Canadian children's television programs based on investment applications from the independent production sector. In 2004, it shifted its approach and became a champion of Canadian children's programming by supporting and promoting high-quality content for children and youth – the Shaw Rocket Fund's primary stakeholder and ultimate beneficiary of its investments.
"For 20 years, the Shaw Rocket Fund has helped develop quality media content for children and youth and represents Canadian enterprise at its most engaged, innovative best," said Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, in a statement. "On behalf of the federal government, I congratulate Shaw Rocket Fund for its leadership and commitment to bringing youth voices to the public policy landscape."
Many Shaw Rocket Fund investments have been critically acclaimed, such as The Breadwinner (Aircraft Pictures), which received both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and Snowtime/La guerre des tuques 3D (CarpeDiem Film & TV), which received the 2015 Cineplex Golden Screen Award for the highest-grossing Canadian film at the domestic box office that year.
Contributors to the Fund are Shaw Communications and Shaw Direct.
"We have always believed that kids and youth in Canada, and around the world, deserve access to high-quality, diverse programming to help them learn and develop while being entertained at the same time," added Shaw Communications CEO Brad Shaw. "Over the past 20 years, the Shaw Rocket Fund has built a legacy of delivering this kind of exceptional, engaging content that has shaped the minds of thousands of young people across our country."
