Launched in April 2010, the Canada Media Fund (CMF) is a non-profit public-private partnership funded by the Government of Canada and the cable, satellite and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) distributors.
The CMF promotes, develops and finances the production of Canadian content and relevant applications for all audiovisual media platforms. It delivers financial support to the Canadian television and digital media industries through three streams of funding.
The Convergent Stream supports the creation of innovative television and digital media content for consumption by Canadians. The Experimental Stream encourages the development of leading edge, interactive digital media content and software applications. A new Development sector stream was added in 2019-2020 to support the development of projects that benefit the sector at large, in particular opportunities relating to training, promotion or mentorship, etc.
In 2018-2019, the CMF provided USD 228 million in funding for the production of 493 television shows and digital content projects generating 2,595 hours of new content and triggering USD 1 billion in production activity. These totals include Aboriginal and diverse languages funded projects, other than our two official languages, namely French and English.
In 2018-2019, 24 programs delivered television audiences of over one million Canadian viewers - in-line with the previous year. Of those, 21 were in the French-language market and three in the English language market.
In 2018-2019, the CMF also contributed USD 32.5 million to 116 innovative projects, that is 26 games, 8 pieces of rich interactive media, 18 web series, and 3 pieces of software. This investment triggered USD 59 million in industry activity.
The CMF contributes also to media diversity, notably through the Diverse Languages Program and Aboriginal Program. The Diverse Languages Program committed USD 2.3 million to 11 convergent projects in Arabic, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Ukrainian. This program resulted in USD 4.1 million in Canada's creative industry's activities. As for the Aboriginal Program, it provided USD 6.5 million to 14 television productions and digital content in Aboriginal languages.
In total, each dollar invested by the CMF generates on average 3 dollars of investments.
Regarding objective 1 c), since April 2019, Canadian online platforms can now trigger CMF funding for digital productions, which demonstrates consideration for market evolution and offers more possibilities in terms of content and format.
For 2019-2020, CMF anticipates it will invest USD 270.5 million (USD 121 million from the Government of Canada and USD 150 million from private distributors) in Canadian production. The Government of Canada annually provides USD 103 million to the CMF. In addition, the Canadian Government has agreed to provide an additional supplement of USD 132 million over a five-year period, totaling USD 18 million for 2019-2020.
The Canada Media Fund also obtains financial contributions from cable, satellite and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Canadian distributors. Under regulatory obligations, broadcast distributors are required to make an annual contribution of 5% of their annual broadcasting revenues to Canadian programming, most of which goes to the CMF.
| Name of partner | Type of entity |
|---|---|
Canadian Coalition of Cultural Expression
| Private Sector
|
The first (and only) Summative Evaluation of the CMF program focused on the period from 2010-11 to 2013-14. It addressed the core issues of relevance and performance, including effectiveness, efficiency and economy.
The evaluation found that the CMF acts to strengthen Canada's capacity to become a leader in the digital economy through its support for Canadian digital content and applications.
All seven of the evaluation recommendations have been fully addressed, which enable PCH to work with the CMF to improve both the Convergent and the Experimental streams and gave the Fund the necessary flexibility, for example, to start funding Web series.
The next summative evaluation of the program is to be completed by summer 2020, covering the five-year period from 2014-15 to 2018-19.