Vancouver: British Columbia producers improved their standings in the Cable Production Fund lottery last week, as the crtc-mandated program announced its final slate of grants for the current fiscal year. Five West Coast projects, receiving a combined total of about $400,000, boost the province’s previously dismal performance in attracting a share of the cpf’s $47 million budget.

Together they share about 26% of the $1.5 million fund’s balance reported by cpf executive director Bill Mustos in the Oct. 23 issue of Playback.

That’s an enormous increase from the 3% return b.c. producers have averaged from the cpf in the first part of the fiscal year.

Mikale Joly, program director at the cpf, says the last-minute jump in funding to b.c. producers has nothing to do with recent criticism about the fairness of the fund; or with simmering disputes over application rejections such as the Canada-France coventure Reckoning, a film by Vancouver-based Movie Vista Productions.

She explains that all applicants are judged in the order they are received and against cpf guidelines.

Combined, b.c. producers received only $1.8 million from the cpf, a mere 4% of the fund’s current budget – even though b.c. claims about 15% of Canadian cable subscribers and is one of the busiest (albeit service-oriented) production centers in North America.

In all, English-language productions received $31.2 million, while French-language productions collected $15.6 million from the cpf this fiscal year.