Aboriginal Program
The Aboriginal Program is designed to support Aboriginal-language independent production in Canada. This program is part of the Canada Media Fund’s (CMF) 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 budget of the Aboriginal Program for development and production was $7.0 M in 2012-2013. Aboriginal-language projects received $616K in 2012-2013 in additional CMF funding from the Performance Envelope, English Production Incentive, and Northern Production Incentive programs.
Production 2012-2013
|
Funding ($M) |
||||||
| TV | DM | Total | Number of projects | Hours |
Budgets ($M) |
|
| Children's & Youth | 2.4 | 0.4 | 2.8 | 6 | 39 | - |
| Documentary | 2.5 | 0.3 | 2.8 | 11 | 28 | - |
| Drama | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | - |
| Variety & Performing Arts | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 1 | 7 | - |
| Total | 5.3 | 0.8 | 6.1 | 18 | 74 | 11.6 |
Production Trends
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | |||||||
|
Funding ($M) |
Number of projects | Hours |
Budgets ($M) |
Funding ($M) |
Number of projects | Hours |
Budgets ($M) |
|
| Children's & Youth | 1.6 | 4 | 20 | - | 1.4 | 4 | 14 | - |
| Documentary | 3.5 | 11 | 41 | - | 4.0 | 11 | 37 | - |
| Drama | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0.8 | 2 | 3 | - |
| Variety & Performing Arts | 0.3 | 1 | 7 | - | 0.3 | 1 | 8 | - |
| Total | 5.4 | 16 | 68 | 12.6 | 6.5 | 18 | 62 | 13.5 |
Aboriginal projects came from British Columbia, Manitoba, Nunavut, Ontario, and Quebec. Funding support was predominantly in children’s & youth and documentaries, at 46.0% each, with variety & performing arts picking up the balance of Aboriginal program production funding. Children’s and youth funding was twice its’ 2011-2012 amount. Digital media components received $0.8M in funding out of the Aboriginal program in 2012-2013. A higher proportion of funds went to development in 2012-2013, totaling $803K. Thus, the total funding committed out of the Aboriginal program has remained steady at $6.9M.
Development 2012-2013
|
Funding ($K) |
Number of projects | |
| Television | 683 | - |
| Digital Media | 120 | - |
| Convergent Total | 803 | 36 |
Development Trends
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | |
| Funding ($K) | 577 | 394 |
| Number of projects | 18 | 15 |
In 2012-2013, APTN licensed 17 projects and Nunavut Independent Television Network licensed one. The number of funded television hours increased to 74 from 62 in 2011-2012. The growth in hours translated to lower CMF funding per project and budgets per hour. In 2012-2013, television production budgets ranged from $100K to $1M.
Average Television Production Budgets
Financing Sources
CMF funding provided 56.7% of television production budgets in 2012-2013 and two-thirds of digital media budgets. Broadcasters provided 13.5% of television budgets with the balance of financing coming from government sources and private funds. Broadcasters contributed 16.7% of digital media component financing, with private funds providing another 8.3%.
Production financing 2012-2013
| Television | Digital Media | |||
| ($M) | % | ($M) | % | |
| CMF - Aboriginal | 5.3 | 50.9 | 0.8 | 66.7 |
| CMF - Performance Envelope, English Production Incentive, Northern Production Incentive | 0.6 | 5.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| CMF | 5.9 | 56.7 | 0.8 | 66.7 |
| Broadcasters | 1.4 | 13.5 | 0.2 | 16.7 |
| Provincial | 2.0 | 19.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Federal | 0.9 | 8.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Private Funds | 0.2 | 1.9 | 0.1 | 8.3 |
| Producers | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Foreign | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Distributors | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Other | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 8.3 |
| Total | 10.4 | 100.0 | 1.2 | 100.0 |
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