Phil Lind, chairperson of the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund, has released more transitional guidelines as agreed to by the Cable Production Fund and Telefilm Canada, the two organizations administering the fund. The ctcpf’s transitional period ends March 31, 1997.

For both the licence fee and equity programs, the licence fee paid by the broadcaster will not be required to exceed $170,000 per hour or $85,000 per half-hour for dramatic productions (series and miniseries). Only ‘identifiably Canadian’ tv movies will be considered eligible and the licence fee paid by the broadcaster will not be required to exceed $100,000 per hour. Earlier, it was announced that the broadcast licence fee threshold has been reduced to 20%, or 17.5% for regional productions.

Under the licence fee program, contributions will match broadcaster licence fees ranging from 20% to 25% for drama (17.5% to 25% for regional productions) and 15% to 20% for non-dramatic productions.

Up to $15 million of the fund will be available from both programs for features during the transitional period. The features must be ‘clearly or identifiably’ Canadian, must conform to Telefilm’s definition, must have a theatrical release by a Canadian distributor recognized by Telefilm, and must have a secured Canadian broadcaster licence fee at ‘fair market value.’

Feature film issues still to be resolved include the minimum threshold for broadcaster licence fees to trigger a contribution, details on the allocation of funds for features between the equity investment program and the licence fee program, and the period of time within which the film must be broadcast.

As for the cbc, up to $12.5 million of the licence fee program’s approximate $100 million will be reserved for the cbc to use as licence fees for eligible indie productions, and productions receiving this licence fee will continue to be eligible for the licence fee program’s top-up contributions.

Lind says that industry consultations will be held across the country this month regarding changes for next year’s guidelines. The implementation of the transitional guidelines are subject to the signing of contribution agreements with Canadian Heritage, and in the interim Telefilm and the cfp are processing applications in anticipation of the signed agreements.