Montreal: The board of the Canadian Television Fund has confirmed its elimination of the $10-million cap on coproduction funds, but is maintaining the status quo regulation on eligibility for ctf funding. Coproductions applying for ctf funds will continue to be evaluated against the Canadian portion of financing only.

Producers had lobbied strenuously since MIPCOM ’99 against a proposal that would have seen ctf coproduction program applications judged against the entire program budget, including the foreign component.

For the 11-month period from Jan. 1 to Dec. 1, 1999, Telefilm Canada has issued advance rulings on 103 projects – 24 feature films and 79 tv productions – with cumulative budgets of $655 million. In budget terms, the ’99 activity, not quite fully reported, represents a 15% increase over ’98 coproduction volumes when there were 70 film and tv projects with combined budgets of $568 million.

Of the $655 million, feature coproductions represent $172 million in budgets, while tv activity stands at $483 million.