With reality television and its kin still prevalent on airwaves, the Canadian Television Fund has clarified what types of programming qualify for funding as documentaries.

Ineligible programming includes reality shows, defined by the CTF as anything with a competitive or team element working toward prizes as its plot, or where a cinema-verité style is used to follow lives and experiences over a short period and in a formulaic way.

Lifestyle programming will not receive CTF funding under the guidelines, be it celebrity-based reality shows, contest shows, achievement programming ­- where the story leads to an ‘unveiling’ of something achieved through the efforts of the expert host or cast – or travelogues.

The CTF has also made a distinction between what kinds of docusoaps it will back. An eligible docusoap will use a main setting that is integral to the series, documenting the activity of recurring characters – Life’s Little Miracles, for example. CTF will not support docusoaps that use different characters and locations, which routinely finish with an end-result or unveiling of a product the subjects have worked toward, in the vein of A Baby Story.

In addition to some docusoaps, the CTF will contribute to what it terms ‘Living Histories’ – shows that serve as a ‘window into the past through use of subject/characters,’ according to the CTF clarification documents. This would include programs such as Frantic Films’ 2002 series Pioneer Quest, which followed two ordinary couples living as early Canadian prairie settlers.

It also states that the new definitions ‘should be read as interpretive guides and not definitional absolutes.’

‘[The CTF] wanted people to have a better understanding of what we were able to be involved with and what we weren’t,’ says outgoing president/CEO Sandra Macdonald. ‘We were finding it increasingly hard to hold the line on the definition of documentary we were using.’

Previously, CTF announced all ‘human interest programming’ was disallowed funding. In the spring, the CTF revised its eligibility rules for documentaries by easing up on some of its Cancon restrictions and adopting the CRTC’s definition of long-form documentary, answering some vocal complaints from doc-makers.

Macdonald adds that although the clarifications may be ‘news’ to some, the guidelines have remained consistent. The CTF has used these same principles to deem what is and is not eligible in terms of documentary programming for several years, she says. However, after the CTF implemented its appeals process in 2003 and reality producers of such shows complained when they were rejected, a panel was formed and proper definitions were drafted.

‘These are the lines we have drawn and applied for the last several years,’ says Macdonald. ‘We are now explaining them much more fully so people can understand what we do and don’t do.’

Documentary Organization of Canada executive committee member Daniel Cross says he and DOC hope CTF stands by its documentary definition and its newly clarified guidelines.

Cross says DOC members are still unhappy because the definitions seem arbitrary. CTF cites Pioneer Quest as a living history, though a case could be made, he says, that it toes the reality line. ‘At the same time, I understand how tricky it is, because you can define culture in so many different ways, but there is a real uphill battle in the TV format structure to get one-off documentaries on the air, especially in the private sector.’