Producers and broadcasters waiting for the September portion of the Licence Fee Program could be waiting in vain.

Sources say the ctcpf board is wrestling with the idea of rolling the remaining $7 million into next year’s fund instead of a fall allocation as planned.

Although the ctcpf’s Garry Toth, executive director of the Licence Fee Program, will only say that ‘The board is looking at a number of different options for money and no decisions have been made,’ with the Sept. 15 filing deadline on the horizon, what to do with the remaining lfp money is dividing the ranks.

In one camp, there are those who want to add the money to next year’s pot.

‘We’ve already mortgaged the future,’ says one executive.

‘Why the hell are we underfinancing more projects, especially when schedules for the next season are full? Better to fold it into next year when we have a new system ready.’

In the other camp are a) producers planning for the financing, and b) executives who want to avoid bad press the likes of April at all costs. It’s an unwieldy situation, says Linda Schuyler, cftpa chair and president of Epitome Pictures.

‘It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

‘On one hand, rolling it into next year could be a rather enlightened view. But then again, I’m not one of the producers who’ve built a business plan that includes that money or who deliberately held their application to round two. The point is, no matter what the board decides, there will be projects not financed and that will lead to more press like we experienced in the spring.’

The situation eclipses the original goodwill behind the 90%/10% scheduling of lfp money which was set up to support projects commissioned later in the season.

In the interim, there have been the events of April, including a solution requiring $2 million of that 10% pool be drawn into the spring funds. Today, the amount that remains of the original 10% is $4 million for English-language production and $3 million for French-language production. As per lfp guidelines, at least 80% of those funds must go into drama and children’s productions.

The ctcpf has no firm numbers on how many new projects are anticipating the September funds. Toth, quiet on most particulars around the September funds debate, is straightforward on the supply/demand equation: ‘There are limited dollars for what we expect will be a very high, high demand. People should realize that they should not expect that money.’

At the producer’s end, however, some are already expecting – in particular, the 10 projects that shared the $2 million in April. In order to satisfy everybody at the end of the line, the spring process split the money pro rata among the remaining applications. Now Toth and the ctcpf are reportedly under pressure to use the September money to add to the financing of those ‘underfinanced’ projects.

Toth says that ‘some of them would like to have access,’ but points out that those projects were given 65 working days to revamp their business plans. ‘Some have found other funding, some of them have pulled their deals altogether, and the remaining still have time to explore their options.’

If the board decides to go ahead with the money this fall – a call Toth says will ideally be made at the next meeting the week of July 6 – then the next dilemma is how to change the first-come, first-served rule without resorting to subjective analysis.

Although Toth won’t speak to the options being examined, word has it one idea is to tighten the eligibility criteria in order to whittle down the number of qualifying productions.

One executive makes the point that it’s likely unworkable. ‘If we say we need a moose, a beaver, a flag and a Mountie for it to be eligible, everybody will find a way. There are so many channels that, either way, there’ll be a surplus of applications.’

Canadian Television Fund

In the time since the ctcpf board meeting at the Banff Television Festival (a rough day all round, leaving two board members exiting the room in tears at one point), news comes that the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund will soon be renamed the Canadian Television Fund. A line pertaining to the contribution from Heritage Canada and the cable companies will accompany the new title.

Since Banff, talk has run to the appointment of Richard Stursberg to chairman of the ctcpf. Many say the bilingual Stursberg will be the new public face and voice of the fund. ‘Given the spring, Telefilm has just got to go away,’ says one executive.