2014-2015 ANNUAL REPORT

Corner Gas:  The Movie - Dog River has always been flat. But now it’s flat broke.

Message from the President and CEO

Valerie Creighton

On behalf of everyone at the Canada Media Fund (CMF), I am pleased to say that the Canadian audiovisual content industry benefited from the Canada Media Fund’s program budget of $368.0 M in 2014-2015 which contributed to financing 1,380 television and digital media projects in development and production.

This funding triggered $1.3 B in production activity across the country, an increase of $100 M when compared to the previous year. Every $1 of CMF funding to new productions generated $3.63 in production activity. This level of funding and support was made possible thanks to the CMF’s funding contributors, the Government of Canada and Canadian cable, satellite and IPTV distributors.

Key performance indicators reveal that the CMF’s funding programs, coupled with an array of promotional initiatives and in-depth industry research on current and upcoming trends, succeeded in providing valuable support for producers to create compelling, successful content for Canadian and world audiences to enjoy.

In 2014-2015 alone, the CMF managed 1,981 funding applications. Our programs were almost fully subscribed at 99%, indicating that our programs are well aligned with the industry’s current needs.

Canadian audiovisual content continued to garner critical acclaim and reach new audiences. The CMF tracked 954 award nominations including 220 wins for CMF-funded projects in 29 award ceremonies across the country. Internationally, 51 CMF-funded projects received nominations of which 27 won awards in 18 different awards ceremonies. Over 35 productions were sold to 41 different markets based on based information monitored online and through social media.

Twenty-five productions delivered television audiences of over one million viewers in the 2013-2014 broadcast season. The weekly per capita viewing to CMF-funded productions was 1.5 hours in the English market and 3.4 hours in the French market. Total measured visits to CMF-funded digital media projects were 22.4 M in the Convergent Stream and 1.9 M in the Experimental Stream.

In 2014-2015, we continued to improve our processes and actions to better meet the industry’s needs. Stakeholder satisfaction with the CMF’s communications role is at 85%; satisfaction with program administration is at 86% and satisfaction levels of the CMF outreach tour achieved a score of 92%.

Finance 

Through its Convergent Stream, which supports the creation of television and digital media content for consumption by Canadians anytime, anywhere, the CMF financed the production of 496 television programs. These were complemented by 231 associated digital media projects, allowing for additional audience engagement with supported content. Convergent Stream production commitments amounted to $311.3M in 2014-2015 and triggered over $1.2B in production volume. Projects emanated from all regions of the country, in a cross-section of languages spoken by Canadians, namely English, French and Aboriginal languages, as well as Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, and Arabic.

Through its Experimental Stream, which encourages the creation of innovative, interactive digital media content and software applications, the CMF provided over $38.6M in funding to 108 projects at the development, production and marketing stages, triggering $60.2M in industry activity. Applications originated from across Canada. The program commitments for the international matching programs was $0.9M, the accelerator program of $0.4M. 

Promote 

The CMF partnered with 65 industry events and contributed to an additional 20, targeting influencers in Canada and internationally. International events focused on promotion of Canadian audiovisual content, developing coproduction opportunities for producers, leveraging CMF funding to develop matching fund programs with other countries and gathering and disseminating industry intelligence. 

These partnerships included established markets like MIPTV and MIPCOM in Cannes (France) as well as markets targeting emerging audiovisual partners such as TV Business Encounters (Argentina), Bogota Audiovisual Market (Colombia) and RioContentMarket (Brazil).

Nationally, red carpet events were held during the Calgary International Film Festival, the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival and the Available Light Film Festival in Whitehorse. Corner Gas, the successful television series turned movie was screened in Regina and in Ottawa, where Minister Shelley Glover hosted. 

A new bilingual website to showcase and celebrate audiovisual content was spearheaded by the CMF in collaboration with Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA). The Eye on Canada website was launched during the 2015 Canadian Screen Awards.

Foster and develop

The CMF developed a dedicated bilingual web destination, CMF Trends, for all publications related to industry and market trends and research. During the year, the CMF published over 50 blog posts and 11 research reports on the website. Among published reports, three were authored by the CMF: Keytrends mid-year Update 2014, Keytrends 2015: The Big Blur Challenge, and Understanding Funders

Other Highlights

Also in 2014-2015, the CMF provided information and statistics to Canadian Heritage for the evaluation of the CMF program. The CMF provided submissions to the CRTC’s comprehensive review of its television policy, Let’s Talk TV, which could potentially have important impacts on the television industry, the content the CMF supports, and the CMF program. 

The CMF is pleased to continue to play a leading role in supporting Canada’s audiovisual content ecosystem in partnership with the private sector, provincial, territorial and municipal governments and the Government of Canada.

The CMF has worked with many comparable funding organizations in other countries over the years, and even more so in the past year, including 40 countries hosted by the CMF during Power to the Pixel in London (UK) to discuss funding approaches, challenges & adaptation strategies to cope in a changing media environment.

Based on feedback we receive from all over the world, we can be proud of the political will and policies that allow talented Canadians to excel on the world stage and that keep Canada at the forefront of the economically and culturally significant content industry.

The CMF is poised to face new challenges and seize opportunities for the industry we are proud to work with and support. The invaluable guidance from the board and the dedication and energy of the staff will ensure we are well prepared to meet what the future holds.

Valerie Creighton
President and CEO

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