Private-sector funds were set up with regulatory approval to meet a specific or niche requirement: Shaw for children’s programming; Rogers for documentaries, specialty TV programs and interim financing; and The Harold Greenberg Fund for features.

One of the fastest-growing private funds, with approximately $6 million to distribute annually, is the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund. The Bell fund will invest up to 50% of a program’s licence fee, or up to $75,000, in the production of all genres of priority programs, and up to $250,000 in a program’s new media component, says executive director Andra Sheffer.

The Independent Production Fund and the Cogeco Program Development Fund make annual equity investments and development loans of close to $3 million each. And while IPF and the Cogeco fund may or may not be partnered with the Canadian Television Fund’s Equity Investment Program or Licence Fee Program, they are affected by changes in business practice and policy, including recently announced recoupment policies at Telefilm Canada, ‘because we all share recoupment,’ says Sheffer, also executive director for both funds.

Sheffer says despite ‘fairly restrictive’ guidelines, over-subscription levels remain quite high at three or four to one.

The private funds are notable for their efficiency, with less paperwork and restriction from public policy issues than the primary government-supported funds. ‘We trust producers, and if they burn us they don’t get [our] money next time,’ Sheffer says.