Sometime in June, Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla is expected to make an announcement that has had broadcasters and TV producers buzzing for much of the last year. The federal government, it is assumed, will make a call as to who should take full control of roughly $250 million in funds directed at making TV shows. Will it be Telefilm Canada or the Canadian Television Fund?

The cold reality is the announcement may never come.

Heritage has been consulting on the issue since last April based partly on recommendations made in the Lincoln Report. But it also stems from some hard lobbying by stakeholders, who for years had to submit separate applications to receive money from Telefilm’s Equity Investment Program and the CTF’s Licence Fee Program.

The move is long overdue. The issue of governance dates back to before 2000 and there are already two shelved studies that tried to confront the matter.

The CTF addressed some of the problems last year when it merged the fund so that the EIP and LFP are now doled out through a single application. But the issue of governance and who controls the funds remains outdated. Both Telefilm and the CTF – a partnership between the federal government and cable and satellite providers (BDUs) – control their own pools of funds.

Meanwhile other funds from private broadcasters, part of the terms of licence dictated by the CRTC, are dispensed separately, adding still more layers to what is already an extremely mind-numbing funding system. Frulla recently called for such funds to be folded into the CTF, so the coming announcement could open the door to one massive TV fund, whatever form it finally takes.

Heritage is looking at four options for this single fund: give it all to Telefilm; give it all to the CTF; create two separate funds, one private, handled by the CTF, and one public, handled by Telefilm; or maintain the status quo.

The last two are nonstarters because neither solution streamlines the process, which is the whole point of the exercise in the first place.

That leaves Frulla with one mighty hot potato – perhaps too hot to handle at this date.

By giving the portfolio to Telefilm, the minister will eliminate the Canadian Television Fund, alienating broadcasters and producers, two groups that have for years enjoyed a hand in their own destinies through membership on the CTF board. The BDUs, meanwhile, also represented on the board, would scream bloody murder if they lost control of over $100 million in CTF contributions they make yearly.

But by calling on the CTF to manage the entire fund, Heritage will severely undercut Telefilm’s mandate, leaving the Crown corporation without a voice in over $1 billion in production and with oversight of only the much smaller domestic feature film and new media sectors. And since Heritage only has one representative on the 17-person CTF board, the federal government will also abdicate much of its direct influence in how public monies are spent making TV shows in this country.

In private, representatives from both Telefilm and the CTF have expressed confidence that their organizations will be handed the TV portfolio. Broadcasters and producers obviously favor the CTF. Others, including lobbyist Ian Morrison of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, say Telefilm should hold the cards because it is mandated to put the public interest first.

‘Any fund where vested interests are controlling the decisions is not in the public interest,’ he says.

One popular scenario is a merger of equals, bringing the two organizations together into a single film, TV and new media agency. As one stakeholder put it, ‘Convergence is not dead… In a world where the lines between media are blurring, why would we continue to have separation?’

But the reality is this. With the opposition breathing down the neck of the Liberal government and the entire country waiting on a vote of non-confidence, Frulla is not likely to have the political will to come out with a strong plan regarding the TV portfolio.

Even if an election is not called by June, which would make the entire year-long exercise moot, will the minister risk alienating large swathes of film and TV professionals and endure the negative press that surely will come with this difficult and complex move?

We’ll know the answer to that in the coming months.