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 (CMF) 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 for development and production was increased to $7.0 M in 2011-2012. Aboriginal-language projects received $726 K in additional CMF funding from the Performance Envelope, English Production Incentive, and Northern Production Incentive programs.
Production
2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | 5-year average | |||||||||||||
$K Funding | $K Funding | $K Funding | |||||||||||||
TV | DM | Total | # | Hours | $K Budgets | TV | DM | Total | # | Hours | $K Budgets | TV | Hours | $K Budgets | |
Children's & Youth | 1,255 | 351 | 1,606 | 4 | 20 | 1,029 | 351 | 1,380 | 4 | 14 | |||||
Documentary | 2,888 | 576 | 3,464 | 11 | 41 | 3,587 | 414 | 4,001 | 11 | 37 | |||||
Drama | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 615 | 213 | 828 | 2 | 3 | |||||
Variety & Performing Arts | 275 | 78 | 353 | 1 | 7 | 287 | 25 | 312 | 1 | 8 | |||||
Total | 4,418 | 1,005 | 5,423 | 16 | 68 | 12,592 | 5,518 | 1,003 | 6,521 | 18 | 62 | 13,518 | 3,381 | 61 | 10,908 |
2006-2007 to 2010-2011 |
Development
2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | 5-year average | ||||||
$K Funding | $K Funding | $K Funding | ||||||
TV | DM | Total | # | TV | DM | Total | # | TV |
418 | 159 | 577 | 18 | 326 | 68 | 394 | 15 | 371 |
Aboriginal projects came from coast to coast to coast: BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nunavut, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Documentaries received 61% of program funding and children's and youth programs received 21% of funding. These proportions are similar to 2010-2011.
Television
In 2011-2012, APTN licensed 16 projects and Nunavut Independent Television Network licensed two. There were two new television dramas, a Movie of the Week (MOW) and a drama series pilot. The increase in funding to television triggered a rise in funding per hour and in budgets per hour. In 2011-2012, TV production budgets ranged from $216 K for a documentary one-off to $1.6 M for a children's and youth series.
Digital Media
Digital media components of projects received 18% of convergent funding in this program. There were 17 digital components funded and the average digital media component budget was $125 K.
Financing Sources
CMF funding provided over half of television production budgets in 2011-2012, and almost half of digital media budgets. Broadcasters provided over 10% of television budgets with the rest of financing coming from government sources. Producers and distributors together provided 30% of digital media component financing.
Production Financing
Television | Digital Media | |||
$K | % | $K | % | |
CMF - AP | 5,518 | 48 | 1,003 | 47 |
CMF - PE, EPI, NPI | 726 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
CMF | 6,244 | 55 | 1,003 | 47 |
Provincial Governments | 2,234 | 20 | 213 | 10 |
Broadcasters | 1,196 | 10 | 197 | 9 |
Federal Government | 1,012 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
Private Funds | 476 | 4 | 60 | 3 |
Producers | 191 | 2 | 292 | 14 |
Distributors | 20 | 0 | 345 | 16 |
Other | 25 | 0 | 10 | 1 |
Total | 11,398 | 100 | 2,120 | 100 |