With the help of more federal dollars, the Canadian Television Fund opened its wallet April 15 to the tune of $131.5 million, to be distributed among Canadian ‘casters through its Broadcaster Performance Envelopes for 2004/05.

The money will be allocated to French-language dramas as well as children’s and youth programming, documentaries and variety and performing arts productions in both English and French.

The CTF has also put aside $85 million of its anticipated $264-million pool this year specifically for English drama, though that won’t be divvied up among projects until mid-May. Telefilm Canada administers this stream, evaluating criteria such as broadcaster interest, audience track records, content and marketing.

‘With a predictable source of financing before them, Canada’s producers and broadcasters can now focus all their energies on creating the type of exceptional programming that will resonate with Canadian viewers,’ says Sandra Macdonald, CTF president and CEO.

On the English side (not including drama), Corus Entertainment controls the largest kitty of about $13 million driven by YTV’s $8.5 million, the second-largest envelope by broadcaster.

The CBC controls about $10.9 million, including $9.9 million for the main network and $954,000 for CBC Newsworld. The main CBC network can spend $3.9 million on documentaries and $2.7 million on children’s programming.

Alliance Atlantis controls about $9.5 million, including $4.5 million for Life Network and $4.2 million for History Television. Astral Media has about $9.5 million, including $5.9 million for Family Channel, allocated entirely to children’s programming.

CTV, which boasts the largest number of envelopes by broadcaster with nine individual envelopes, has $8.6 million, including $3.8 million for the main network and $3.9 million for Discovery Channel Canada.

CHUM has about $1.4 million in licensing funding, including $1.2 million for arts channel Bravo!, of which only $281,000 is dedicated to performing arts and the rest to documentary.

In English funding overall, $26 million was allocated to children’s and youth programming, $23.4 million to documentaries and $2.8 million to variety and performing arts. With the so-called ‘flex’ allocation of $9.2 million, English programming gets $61.5 million.

French broadcasters have the drama allocation included in their envelopes.

Radio-Canada controls the most licensing money with $23.2 million, including $13.3 million for drama and $2.8 million for documentaries. Groupe TVA has $15.2 million, including $12.5 million for drama.

Astral Media, including its partial shares in some French-language broadcasters, controls about $10.5 million, including $2.3 million for Canal D.

Tele-Quebec has $8.9 million to spend on licensing, including $2.6 million for children’s programming and $2.5 million on documentaries.

In French funding overall, $10.1 million was allocated to children’s and youth programming, $12.5 million to documentaries, $4.3 million to variety and performing arts and $32.7 to drama. With the flex allocation of $10.5 million, French-language programming gets $70 million.

Broadcasters have immediate access to a 10% holdback originally set aside from the BPEs as a contingency to address unforeseen problems with the new system, which is designed to reward audience development and to reduce administrative costs.

As part of the federal budget announced March 23, federal contributions to the CTF were restored at the $100-million level for 2004 and also for 2005.

The CTF ground rules about how broadcasters can manage their 73 individual envelopes are:

* BPEs have specific allocations per genre in keeping with the types of CTF-supported productions each broadcaster has licensed in the past three fiscal years. Broadcasters are given a 15% margin of flexibility on the established genre targets, meaning at least 85% of the envelope must be spent according to the genre targets. The remaining 15% may be directed to any allowable genre (excluding English-language drama) at the broadcaster’s discretion.

* Broadcasters belonging to the same corporate group are permitted to transfer up to 100% of the funds from their BPEs to a broadcaster within the same corporate group provided the funds remain in the same genre. This transfer may be performed in all genres with the exception of English- and French-language drama.

* Broadcasters are also permitted to transfer all or a portion of their allotted 15% flex amount to another broadcaster within the same corporate group. As before, this 15% flex amount can be used in any genre of programming with the exception of English- and French-language drama.

* Transfers cannot be made across languages.

Each broadcaster’s performance envelope can be found on the CTF website.

-www.canadiantelevisionfund.ca