OTTAWA – As the CRTC prepares to review the relative success of the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF), it has released new numbers for the 2010-2011 period, ending August 31st, which indicate Shaw Communications paid the most into the fund, followed by Bell Canada and Rogers Cable.
Shaw (cable and satellite) combined to pay almost $32 million (an earlier version of this story had an erroneous amount for Shaw), followed by Bell at $25.08 million and Rogers at $24.05 million. Quebecor (Videotron) contributed $13.6 million and Cogeco, $6.77 million.
Shaw, the LPIF’s largest contributor, received only $8.06 million in LPIF funding for its Global Television stations, however. Of the private broadcasters, Bell Media’s CTV and CTV Two stations received the greatest amount of LPIF payments totaling nearly $23.64 million in the 2011 broadcast year (nearly as much as its parent company paid into the fund), compared with $6.4 million for Quebecor’s TVA and only $1.09 million for Rogers’ Citytv.
Overall, the CBC was the biggest winner when it came to LPIF funding, receiving a combined $40.7 million ($19.49 million for English programming and $21.2 million for French). In total, LPIF payments in 2010-11 totalled $106.56 million, compared to $100.68 million the previous year.
The amounts delivered to independent broadcasters such as CHCH and CHEK were not made public by those broadcasters and were therefore not contained in the CRTC document. Only the CBC, Rogers and Groupe TVA released the amounts their individual stations received in LPIF funding.
Groupe TVA’s largest beneficiary of LPIF funds was its CFCM station in Quebec with $2.975 million. CBHT in Halifax easily topped all CBC stations with $5.74 million in LPIF funding, followed by CBVT in Quebec with $4.51 million. In total, CBC TV stations received nearly $40.7 million in LPIF funding in 2010-11. Rogers reported that its station in Portage La Prairie, CHMI, received nearly $1.09 million in program funding.
