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 inside Quebec has almost returned to 2010-2011 levels, at $12.8M, or 6.1% of English-language funding for 2012-2013. The majority of this funding support came from the Performance Envelope (PE) program. The English Production Incentive Program accounted for $3.8M of funding support, as Quebec was an eligible province in 2012-2013.
Funding to Francophone production outside of Quebec has declined from the past two years, to $10.4M in 2012-2013, while meeting the mandated target of 10.0% of overall French funding. The Francophone Minority (FM) Program contributed $9.9M and $0.5M came from the PE program. One project received PE funds without FM program support.
Minority Language Production Funding
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | 2012-2013 | |
| English in Quebec ($M) | 13.2 | 10.0 | 12.8 |
| Total English CMF Funding (%) | 7.1 | 4.9 | 6.1 |
| French outside of Quebec ($M) | 11.9 | 11.5 | 10.4 |
| Total French CMF Funding (%) | 12.4 | 11.5 | 10.1 |
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 89 television hours and 10 digital media components in 2012-2013. Total budgets declined from $26.7M last year to $20.7M in 2012-2013, along with a decline in the number of projects. However, average budgets per hour increased to a 3-year high at $234K. Documentaries received 55.8% of funding, compared to 50.4% last year; the other genres received about 15% each.
Francophone Minority Program Production 2012-2013
|
Funding ($M) |
||||||
| TV | DM | Total | Number of projects | Hours | Budgets ($M) | |
| Children's & Youth | 1.1 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 2 | 17 | 2.9 |
| Documentary | 5.1 | 0.4 | 5.5 | 22 | 43 | 10.0 |
| Drama | 1.5 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 1 | 5 | 3.6 |
| Variety & Performing Arts | 1.5 | 0.0 | 1.5 | 7 | 24 | 4.2 |
| Total | 9.2 | 0.7 | 9.9 | 32 | 89 | 20.7 |
Francophone Minority Program Production trends
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | |||||||
|
Funding ($M) |
Number of projects | Hours |
Budgets ($M) |
Funding ($M) |
Number of projects | Hours |
Budgets ($M) |
|
| Children's & Youth | 1.1 | 2 | 17 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 2 | 17 | 2.6 |
| Documentary | 4.1 | 16 | 44 | 8.6 | 5.3 | 18 | 59 | 11.6 |
| Drama | 2.9 | 3 | 19 | 10.7 | 2.4 | 2 | 12 | 7.7 |
| Variety & Performing Arts | 1.5 | 7 | 25 | 4.5 | 1.4 | 5 | 30 | 4.8 |
| Total | 9.6 | 28 | 105 | 26.5 | 10.2 | 27 | 118 | 26.7 |
A record amount of funding went to FM development in 2012-2013 which totaled $434K, triggering 22 projects, 10 more than in 2010-2011 or 2011-2012.
Francophone Minority Program Development 2012-2013
|
Funding ($K) |
Number of projects | |
| Television | 434 | - |
| Digital Media | 7 | - |
| Convergent Total | 441 | 22 |
Francophone Minority Development trends
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | |
| Funding ($K) | 379 | 300 |
| Number of projects | 12 | 12 |
Projects originated from across the country, with the highest percentage of funding going to Ontario at 59.6%, 20.2% to New Brunswick, 14.4% to British Columbia and 5.8% to Manitoba.
Francophone Minority Program Funding by Province 2012-2013
The FM program provided 46.9% of television financing M and 63.6% of digital media financing to projects. Broadcasters provided around 24.5% for television and 18.2% for digital media projects. Radio-Canada licensed 20 projects and TFO licensed 4, while TV5 licensed 4, Astral licensed 3, and TVA licensed 1.
Francophone Minority Program Production Financing 2012-2013
| Television | Digital Media | |||
| ($M) | % | ($M) | % | |
| CMF - Francophone Minority | 9.2 | 46.9 | 0.7 | 63.6 |
| CMF - Performance Envelope | 0.3 | 1.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| CMF | 9.5 | 48.4 | 0.7 | 63.6 |
| Broadcasters | 4.8 | 24.5 | 0.2 | 18.2 |
| Provincial | 3.5 | 17.9 | 0.1 | 9.1 |
| Federal | 1.8 | 9.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Private Funds | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 9.1 |
| 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 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Total | 19.6 | 100.0 | 1.1 | 100.0 |
Facebook
Twitter