The numbers have been crunched for the Cable Production Fund’s first year and the final tally is that with $46.5 million in allocations, the fund triggered 172 productions worth $329.9 million.

Drama, both regional and out of Montreal and Toronto, accounted for 66.9% of the fund (about $31 million). The cpf supported over 49 drama projects, with budgets tallying at $214 million. Production of children’s programming accounted for 15.2% of the fund (or just over $7 million), with the 25 projects supported worth about $61.4 million, and 81 documentaries, whose budgets totaled $37 million, drew just under $6 million, or 12.8% of the fund.

The fund had a 14-month inaugural fiscal year (ending February 29) and a budget of about $47 million. Year two will see the cpf settle into a twelve-month fiscal cycle, meaning a drop in 1996/97 to $42 million. In these times of government cutbacks and instability in the tax system, the first-come first-served fund was embraced and inhaled by producers before the end of its first year. The drop in $5 million could mean trouble for the cpf, which had to implement a $1.5 million cap and a licence fee cap in its first year to keep the funds flowing through the fall.

Bill Mustos has a plan to stretch next year’s funds further. In place are a cap of $1 million per project and a licence fee cap that, from the outset of the year, Mustos hopes ‘will stretch our monies to the tune of $14 million.’

Regional breakdown

Mustos estimates 25% of the cpf’s monies came from the regions and about 23% went to regional productions. The regional breakdown of the fund is: 39% to Quebec, just under 37% to Ontario, 10% to Alberta, 5% to Nova Scotia, 4% to each of b.c. and Manitoba, 1% to Saskatchewan and just under 1% to Newfoundland.

Complaints from British Columbia producers saying the province’s contributions exceeded its rewards have been addressed by Mustos by amending the cpf domestic coproduction rule. In the past, the cpf mirrored the Telefilm Canada ruling that disqualifies a regional co-production if it has coproducing partners in either Toronto or Montreal. Mustos has removed the stipulation, allowing regional coproductions eligibility if they are producing with partners in either Toronto or Montreal and he hopes Telefilm will follow his example.

Another change in the cpf’s guidelines focuses on the start date of principal photography for a tv series that starts shooting in winter (from December through February), by which time the cpf’s funds were drained this year. The cpf will not support the series in the following fiscal year if the production dates spill over from one year to another. ‘The rationale for that is we ran out of money about November 1 and technically any series beginning to shoot in any fiscal year should apply in that year,’ says Mustos.

Amend coprod rules

Still pending is the crtc’s request from the cpf to amend treaty coproduction regulations from the existing eight out of ten Cancon eligibility requirement to a stipulation of 65% (or more) majority Canadian ownership. Mustos is hoping the crtc will make its decision known sooner than the end of March because of the disruption to producers in the interim. ‘The challenge for us now is to adequately convey to the commission the urgency of this (issue) so that when we open our doors April 1 the treaty coproducers are in no worse a position than the non-treaty applicants.’

Support should

continue

When asked about possible threats to the stability of the fund, Mustos anticipates support will continue steadily from the 39 participating cable companies but he does see some factors that could eventually have an impact. ‘The challenges to cable that may have an impact may have to do with competition from the telephone companies if they’re in the game of providing program delivery services. And there is a question in the air right now around whether or not cable will feel any pressure to drop the cpf commitment in the event the tax recommendation in the Juneau report is supported. Thirdly, there is still the dark cloud of Keith Mahar… These are longer term variables that may have an impact on us, but I hope not.’