BANFF — Partway to becoming the Canada Media Fund, the Canadian Television Fund on Tuesday named most of the people who will make up its board of directors through the coming year, as the oft-embattled outfit moves into the broader mandate of backing both television and new media content.

Following a closed-door meeting at the Banff World Television Festival on Tuesday, the CTF brass emerged with six names, some new, some familiar, for 2009/10.

The new, leaner board is made up of two nominees put forth from the Department of Canadian Heritage and four from the Canadian Coalition for Cultural Expression, a banner which includes cable and satellite companies.

The CCCE’s nominees are: Alison Clayton, former VP of programming at The Movie Network; Ronald W. Osborne, current chair of Sun Life Financial and past president/CEO of Ontario Power Generation; Montreal businessman Louis L. Roquet; and Guy Fournier, author, playwright and short-lived chairman of the board at CBC.

Roquet will chair the board.

Heritage has put forward CTF alums Cheryl Barker and Eileen Sarkar. A seventh director will be named at a late date, said CTF.

A town hall-style meeting that followed word of the new board saw fund insiders at pains to allay misgivings about the CMF, which is due to come into official existence in April 2010.

‘Our mandate is still and our legal agreements are still between the funder and the production companies,’ says CTF president and CEO Valerie Creighton in the above video segment, addressing concerns that broadcasters will scoop CMF cash through in-house productions. ‘The intention certainly is to open [the fund] up somewhat, the intention is not to open it up wide.’