Official Minority Language Support

A key mandate for the Canada Media Fund (CMF) is to support official languages in minority settings. The CMF achieves this objective through a number of programs.

Funding to English-language production in Quebec has declined significantly from previous years, to $8.1M, or 4.1% of English-language funding for 2013-2014.  A total of 36.9% of this funding support came from the Anglophone Minority Incentive, launched in 2013-2014. Also, 50.5% was committed from the Performance Envelope (PE) program and the remainder of funding came from other convergent programs.

Funding to Francophone production outside of Quebec has stayed stable compared to 2012-2013 at $10.3M in 2013-2014 and met the mandated target of 10.0% of overall French funding. The Francophone Minority (FM) Program contributed $9.9M and $0.4M came from the PE program. Two projects received PE funds without FM program support.

Minority Language Production Funding

	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014
English in Quebec ($M)	13.2	10.0	12.8	8.1
Total English CMF Funding (%)	7.1	4.9	6.1	4.1
French outside of Quebec ($M)	11.9	11.5	10.4	10.3
Total French CMF Funding (%)	12.4	11.5	10.1	10.4

The Francophone Minority Program (FM) is designed to encourage the creation of projects that reflect the realities experienced by French-language communities living outside the province of Quebec. This program is part of the CMF’s Convergent Stream; thus, projects funded through this program must include content to be produced for distribution on at least two platforms, one of which must be television and the other, digital media. Funding from this program is allocated according to a selective process, using an evaluation grid.

The FM program supported 147 television hours, a four-year high, and 12 digital media components in 2013-2014. Total budgets rose by $4.1M from last year to $24.8M in 2013-2014, although the number of projects remained the same, at 32.  The average television budget per hour was $170K. Documentaries received 62.3% of funding, compared to 55.8% last year; Children’s & Youth received 23.2% and Variety & Performing Arts 14.5%. A total of $300K was earmarked out of the FM program to support development of 16 projects.

Francophone Minority Program Production 2013-2014

	Funding ($M)
	TV	DM	Total	Number of projects	Hours	Budgets ($M)
Children's & Youth	1.8	0.5	2.3	4	42	6.6
Documentary	5.6	0.6	6.2	25	75	12.7
Drama	0.0	0.0	0.0	0	0	0.0
Variety & Performing Arts	1.2	0.2	1.4	3	30	5.5
Total	8.6	1.3	9.9	32	147	24.8

Francophone Minority Program Production Trends

	2010-2011				2011-2012				2012-2013
	Funding ($M)	Number of projects	Hours	Budgets ($M)	Funding ($M)	Number of projects	Hours	Budgets ($M)	Funding ($M)	Number of projects	Hours	Budgets ($M)
Children's & Youth	1.1	2	17	2.7	1.1	2	17	2.6	1.3	2	17	2.9
Documentary	4.1	16	44	8.6	5.3	18	59	11.6	5.5	22	43	10.0
Drama	2.9	3	19	10.7	2.4	2	12	7.7	1.6	1	5	3.6
Variety & Performing Arts	1.5	7	25	4.5	1.4	5	30	4.8	1.5	7	24	4.2
Total	9.6	28	105	26.5	10.2	27	118	26.7	9.9	32	89	20.7

Francophone Minority Program Development 2013-2014

	Funding ($K)	Number of projects
Television	285
Digital Media	15
Convergent Total	300	16

The FM program provided 38.0% of television project financing and 59.5% of digital media financing. Broadcasters provided 34.7% for television and 31.3% for digital media projects. Radio-Canada licensed 13 projects and TV5 licensed 11, while TFO licensed 6, Canal D and RDS licensed 3, and Télé-Québec licensed 1.

Francophone Minority Program Production Financing 2013-2014

	Television		Digital Media
	($M)	%	($M)	%
CMF - Francophone Minority	8.6	38.0	1.3	59.5
CMF - Performance Envelope	0.3	1.3	0.0	0.2
CMF	8.9	39.3	1.3	59.7
Broadcasters	7.9	34.7	0.7	31.3
Provincial	3.6	16.0	0.2	8.3
Federal	1.8	8.2	0.0	0.0
Private Funds	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Producers	0.4	1.8	0.0	0.7
Foreign	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Distributors	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Other	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Total	22.6	100.0	2.2	100.0

The Anglophone Minority Incentive (AMI) was established in 2013-2014 to create a predictable source of official minority language support for the English market. The program allocation of $3.0M was fully subscribed and 6 projects were supported. AMI was formulated to supplement PE funding for television projects. A total of 37.4% of the AMI went to Children’s & Youth projects, 33.3% went to Drama and 29.3% went to Documentary.

Anglophone Minority Incentive 2013-2014

	Funding ($M)	Number of projects	Hours	Budgets ($M)
Children's & Youth	1.1	2	8	13.2
Documentary	0.9	3	19	6.8
Drama	1.0	1	9	12.3
Variety & Performing Arts	0.0	0	0	0.0
Total	3.0	6	36	32.3

 

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