Canadian Television Fund Debuts New Production Incentive

TORONTO, May 6: The Canadian Television Fund (CTF) has
created a production incentive that aims to balance the distribution of
financial support to English-language productions across Canada, with the pilot
program designed to encourage production in areas where volume has declined
significantly.

The CTF will monitor production activity in Atlantic Canada,
Quebec, Ontario and Nunavut, the Prairies, and British Columbia and the Yukon
and Northwest Territories. If production activity falls below 20 percent of a
five-year average in any area, the CTF may implement the production incentive
in that area in the following fiscal year.

The first production areas to benefit from this C$5-million
incentive include Atlantic Canada and Quebec, where production activity fell
below the target level in 2007-2008. As such, two separate CTF allocations of
C$2.2 million and C$2.8 million have been created for productions based in
Quebec and Atlantic Canada, respectively, for 2008-2009. Applications will be
accepted beginning May 20 until the allocations for the incentives are depleted
or December 8, 2008, whichever comes first.

The production incentive will take the form of a license fee
top-up, consisting of 10 percent of a project's eligible costs up to a maximum
of C$1 million per project. The incentive will be awarded to eligible projects
on a first-come, first-served basis. It will be awarded separately and in
addition to any amounts contributed to eligible projects through other CTF
streams.

Projects with eligible license fees from Canadian
broadcasters who do not have a CTF broadcaster performance envelope are
eligible. As per the CTF's contribution agreement with the Department of
Canadian Heritage, 37 percent of the program is reserved for projects with
eligible license fees from the CBC.

To meet the requirements of the contribution agreement,
C$2.5 million has been added to the CTF's support of French-language
production. Of this C$2.5 million, 10 percent will support French-language
production outside of Quebec.

—By Irene Lew