Television casters and producers will have about $275 million in Canadian Television Fund money at their disposal for 2008/09, following Broadcaster Performance Envelope allocations announced this week.

The BPEs break down to $173 million for English-language TV, and $79 million for French. The cash will go toward dramas, children’s and youth shows, documentaries and variety/performing arts programs.

The CTF has put aside the largest portion of the pie for English drama at $88 million, followed by children’s and youth with $28 million. Documentaries received $25 million. About $2 million has been earmarked for variety and performing arts.

On the English side, the biggest recipient, as usual, is indie productions airing on the CBC, with CTF funds totalling just over $64 million, with $42 million going towards drama and $5.9 million dedicated to documentaries. The second-largest envelope belongs to CTV’s main network at $16 million, followed by Canwest’s Global and E! with $9 million. History Television and Rogers’ Citytv group of stations each obtained about $5.5 million.

In French funding, Radio-Canada controls most of the money with $29 million, including $16 million for drama and $3.9 million for documentaries. (The CTF is obligated to allocate 37% of the BPEs to CBC/Radio-Canada as a condition of its agreement with the Department of Canadian Heritage.)

TVA has the second-largest French-language envelope with $17 million, followed by cabler Canal D with $4 million. In all, French-language dramas will receive $36 million.

Future direction for the fund is in the hands of Heritage, which awaits recommendations from the CRTC.