Canadian Television Fund - Responsibilities

Responsibilities

The Department of Canadian Heritage sets out objectives for the CTF within a Contribution Agreement. The main goal of the CTF is to support the creation and broadcast in peak viewing hours of high-quality Canadian television programs in both official languages in the genres of Drama, Children's and Youth, Documentary, and Variety and Performing Arts, and to build audiences for these programs.

The CTF must also:

• allocate one-third of its resources to French-language programming and two-thirds to English-language programming;
• support the production of Aboriginal-language programming;
• encourage production by majority and minority official-language sectors;
• provide incentives for regionally based productions;
• set aside an envelope to support French-language productions from producers outside of Quebec;
• implement a mechanism that enhances access to the CTF by programs supported by educational broadcasters;
• provide developmental support, including script and pilot development;
• allocate an envelope for programs licensed by CBC/Radio-Canada;
• ensure appropriate levels of market access for broadcaster-affiliated production companies and independent production companies, with no competitive advantage in French or English broadcast markets;
• support language versioning and subtitling.

The CTF provides financing for the development, production and broadcast of Canadian-made programming in French, English and Aboriginal languages in the following genres: Drama, Children's and Youth, Documentary, and Variety and Performing Arts. The CTF provides four types of contributions to projects: repayable advances (development); grants (versioning); licence fee top-ups (production); and equity investments (production).

The CTF makes financial contributions through five funding streams: Broadcaster Performance Envelopes, Development, French-language Projects Outside Quebec, Aboriginal-language Projects, and Versioning Assistance.

Eligible projects must meet the following four Essential Requirements (4ER) before they can be submitted for consideration to any stream of funding (with the exception of 2ER documentaries):

• The project speaks to Canadians about and reflects Canadian themes and subject matter.
• The project will be certified by the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO) and has achieved 10/10 points (or the maximum number of points appropriate to the project), as determined by the CTF using the CAVCO scale.
• Underlying rights are owned and significantly and meaningfully developed by Canadians.
• The project is shot and primarily set in Canada.

The level of the CTF's contribution to a production varies by genre, language and the stream of funding through which the contribution is obtained. Each funding stream may provide a mix of licence fee top-ups and equity investments, according to a set formula.

NB: Some contributions may take forms other than equity or licence fee top-up, such as grants or advances.