The Canada Media Fund (CMF) invested nearly $380 million in audiovisual and interactive digital media projects for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

The funder published its annual report last Friday (Sept. 27), which showed a close to $20 million increase in support via its programs compared to 2022-23, thanks to additional funding allocations from the federal government to support underrepresented voices and French-language content.

The total $379.7 million was committed to 1,496 television and interactive digital media projects. Every dollar invested by the CMF generated $4.52 in production activity across the country, slightly less than the $4.85 reported in 2022-23.

Overall, CMF programs triggered $1.7 billion in economic activity, on par with the previous fiscal year.

CMF CEO Valerie Creighton said in a statement that the report underscores the funder’s commitment to expanding the Canadian screen industry via strategic investments, “expanding equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility, and supporting the best Canadian and Indigenous stories nationwide.”

CMF received 2,100 applications, of which 1,496 were funded – up 12.1% from 2022-23 when the funder invested in 1,334 projects.

English-language productions amounted to 63.1% of CMF program funding, followed by French productions at 32.9%, Indigenous at 2.9% and diverse languages at 1.1%.

Production volume triggered by English language productions amounted to $912.3 million, a slight drop from $974.6 million in 2022-23. French language projects, meanwhile, triggered $642.4 million, up from $628.6 million last fiscal year. Production volume from Indigenous-language productions was not listed, but last fiscal year totaled $25 million.

The total production volume triggered from the Pilot Program for Racialized Communities was $46.9 million, with English-language projects accounting for $35.1 million and French-language projects for $11.8 million.

Production volume for CMF-funded projects has increased 24% from 2019-20, according to the report.

Total sales from funded projects for all languages was $245.2 million, up from the $201.5 million reported in 2022-23. Notably, the number of sold projects slightly fell, coming to 954 compared to 986 in the previous fiscal year, despite the monetary increase. Dramas accounted for 72.8% of the sales, with children’s and youth programming taking the second biggest share with 18.9%.

Documentary accounted for 8.2%, with the remaining 0.1% of sales coming from variety and performing arts programming.

CMF’s total revenue came to $399.7 million, a 2.9% increase from $388.6 million in 2022-23.

Federal government funding increased by 15.2% from $188.3 million in 2022-23 to $216.9 million in 2023-24. The report noted that since 2018-19, the government has increased its funding to the CMF to offset the decline in BDU contributions, which continued their decline once again. Contributions from BDUs decreased 7.3% in the fiscal year, from $171.3 million in 2022-23 to $158.8 million in 2023-2024.

Revenue from the recoupment of production investments came to $5.9 million for the fiscal, a 33.8% decline from $9 million in 2022-23. Revenue from tangible benefits decreased by 7.7%, from $1.9 million in 2022-23 to $1.8 million in 2023-24.

At the same time, total expenses increased 7% year-over-year, from $380.8 million to $407.3 million. Program commitments accounted for 92.4% of all expenses.

Image: Unsplash