Aboriginal Program

The Aboriginal Program is designed to support Aboriginal-language independent production in Canada.  This program is part of the Canada Media Fund’s Convergent Stream; thus, projects funded through this program must include content to be produced for distribution on at least two platforms, one of which must be television and the other, digital media. Funding from this program is allocated according to a selective process, using an evaluation grid.

As a result of past oversubscription on available program funding, the budget of the Aboriginal Program budget was increased to $7M.  In addition, the CMF’s maximum contribution to the television and digital media components of a convergent project were increased to $400,000 and $200,000 respectively, allowing the production of more series hours and higher production budgets.  Over two thirds of program funding was allocated to documentary projects.

Television

Fourteen projects were licensed by APTN, while Nunavut Independent Television Network and Radio-Canada each licensed one project.

Digital Media

Digital media components of projects received 17% of convergent funding, the highest share amongst all Convergent Stream programs.  The CMF’s contribution towards the creation of these digital media components triggered close to $2.3 million in production activity in Canada’s digital economy. 

 

	2010-2011						5-year average			% share of $
	TV Funding $K	DM Funding $K	Total Funding $K	# of Convergent Projects	TV Hours	Total Budgets $K	TV Funding $K	TV Hours	Total Budgets $K	2010-2011	5-year average
Drama	0	0	0	0	0		28	0		0	1
Children's & Youth	1,255	351	1,606	4	20		921	12		28	29
Documentary	3,261	576	3,837	11	41		1,766	30		66	56
Variety & Performing Arts	275	78	353	1	7		440	14		6	14
Aboriginal Total	4,791	1,005	5,796	16	68	12,592	3,155	56	10,290	100	100

Footnote

Two Aboriginal projects received $113,000 in funds from the Performance Envelope Program. Three projects received $231,000 from the English Production Incentive. One project received $30,000 from the Northern Production Incentive.

 

Financing Sources

The CMF was by far the largest funding contributor to Aboriginal-language projects with just under 50% of financing in both television and digital media.

Television	$K	%
CMF	4,791	47
Broadcasters	1,170	11
Federal Government	969	9
Provincial Governments	2,004	19
Distributors	80	1
Foreign	0	0
Producers	814	8
Private Funds	485	5
Interim Financiers	0	0
Other Canadian	10	0
Total Budgets	10,323	100

Digital Media	$K	%
CMF	1,005	44
Broadcasters	90	4
Federal Government	150	7
Provincial Governments	285	12
Distributors	160	7
Foreign	0	0
Producers	308	14
Private Funds	271	12
Interim Financiers	0	0
Other Canadian	0	0
Total Budgets	2,269	100

 

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