Development

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) supports the development and pre-development of Canadian content mainly through its Development Program. This program is part of the CMF’s Convergent Stream; thus, projects funded through this program must include content to be developed for distribution on at least two platforms, one of which must be television and the other, digital media. Funding from this program is allocated through broadcaster envelopes and first-come, first-served programs. Development funds have been earmarked within the Aboriginal and Francophone Minority programs as well.

DEVELOPMENT ENVELOPES

In 2013-2014, the CMF contributed $10.7M to 408 convergent development projects through development envelopes and saw an 81% increase in the number of funded projects over 2012-2013. Although total development budgets have increased slightly, the average amount of funding committed per project has fallen from $45K to $26K. The program was fully subscribed for the first time since the beginning of the CMF. English-language projects received $7.8M, 72.7% of which was spent on Drama projects and 16.2% on Documentaries. Documentary and Children’s & Youth development showed year-over-year increases in English funding, Documentary growing 77.0% over 2012-2013 funding. French-language projects received $2.9M, of which 49.8% was spent on Drama projects and 30.5% on Documentary projects.

Convergent Envelope Funding by Genre and Language

	2010-2011			2011-2012			2012-2013			2013-2014
	Funding ($K)	Number of projects	Budgets ($K)	Funding ($K)	Number of projects	Budgets ($K)	Funding ($K)	Number of projects	Budgets ($K)	Funding ($K)	Number of projects	Budgets ($K)
Children's & Youth	943	31	1,961	1,067	33	2,295	657	22	1,178	843	47	1,630
Documentary	540	41	1,134	648	42	1,368	715	35	1,460	1,262	59	2,193
Drama	5,345	108	10,829	5,390	96	10,597	5,744	75	10,970	5,676	131	10,715
Variety & Performing Arts	203	3	434	150	3	250	157	5	238	28	2	56
English Envelopes	7,031	183	14,358	7,255	174	14,510	7,273	137	13,846	7,809	239	14,594
Children's & Youth	190	6	328	353	12	598	452	13	829	481	31	906
Documentary	1,231	41	2,354	1,030	46	1,850	1,002	54	1,834	872	79	1,708
Drama	1,731	34	4,227	1,574	19	3,666	1,312	20	2,975	1,423	52	3,238
Variety & Performing Arts	0	0	0	74	2	154	102	2	256	84	7	158
French Envelopes	3,152	81	6,909	3,031	79	6,268	2,868	89	5,894	2,860	169	6,010
Total	10,183	264	21,267	10,286	253	20,778	10,141	226	19,740	10,669	408	20,604

 

Regional Development

The English Regional Pre-development program was established in 2012-2013 in response to stakeholders’ proposals to sustain the vitality of regional production by supporting producers in their preparation of documents to present to broadcasters at the early stages of development.  A total of 77 projects were funded at an average of $12.0K per project, on a first-come, first-served basis. The majority of funding went to documentaries, 52.0% or $493.0K. British Columbia received the largest portion of funding at 27.9%. The balance of funding was distributed in varying levels from coast to coast.

$230K in development funding was committed to 16 projects in Quebec outside of Montreal through the French Regional Development Program, on a first-come, first-served basis.

English Regional Pre-development by Genre 2013-2014

	2012-2013		2013-2014
	Funding ($K)	Number of projects	Funding ($K)	Number of projects
Children's & Youth	203	14	249	18
Documentary	623	42	493	42
Drama	508	36	181	15
Variety & Performing Arts	15	1	25	2
Total	1,349	93	948	77

 

English Regional Pre-development by region 2013-2014

	2012-2013		2013-2014
	Funding ($K)	%	Funding ($K)	%
AB	191	14.2	100	10.5
BC	532	39.4	265	27.9
MB	105	7.8	100	10.6
Montreal	144	10.7	87	9.2
NB	9	0.7	13	1.3
NL	60	4.4	0	0.0
NS	195	14.4	134	14.1
ON	88	6.5	187	19.8
QC	0	0.0	37	4.0
SK	25	1.9	0	0.0
YK	0	0.0	25	2.6
Total	1,349	100.0	948	100.0

 

Regional French Development 2013-2014

	Funding ($K)	Number of projects
Total	230	16

 

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