Canada New Media Fund faces five-year review

The Canada New Media Fund is up for review by the Department of Canadian Heritage this summer, the first such review since its inception nearly six years ago - a veritable eternity in the fast-paced world of interactive and digital content."You can imagine that what were great ideas back in 2001 just don't line up to the reality of the industry by the time you're into 2007," says Mare Burgess, head of research and planning and senior policy advisor at Telefilm Canada, which administers the fund on the department's behalf.Periodic reviews of the Canada New Media Fund and other initiatives are a fact of life at Heritage, and are mandated by the Treasury Board for all grant and contribution programs. While the fund conducts its own annual consultations with constituents, the current review is the first formal audit by Heritage."We look at our guidelines on an annual basis," says Burgess, but adds that "this is a special year because in the context of the renewal we have an opportunity to make more meaningful changes that we've been waiting to make for a while."While Telefilm's funding has grown over the years - from $6 million under the pre-2001 Multimedia Fund, to $9 million when the Canada New Media Fund launched in 2001 to the 2005-2006 commitment of $14 million, which was renewed last year - it perhaps hasn't been as quick to respond to the pace of change in what is doubtless the fastest-changing cultural industry in the Crown corporation's portfolio."The renewed fund will have within it the provisions that we require to be able to respond to the industry quickly," Burgess says. That faster, more nimble approach was outlined in Telefilm's five-year corporate plan, "From Cinemas to Cell Phones," published last year.An example of that philosophy put into practice was the launch of the million-dollar Great Canadian Videogame Competition last year, an initiative undertaken in support of the growth in Canada's game development industry and the type of response Telefilm would like to be able to bring to fruition more quickly."One of the big things we're looking to do now that we can renew the program is to update it so that it's more reflective of what the industry really looks like today," Burgess says. "That's one of the reasons that we launched the Great Canadian Videogame Competition last year, in anticipation of the renewal of the fund, was to test the waters and see how we might do this."As an example of the changes over the fund's lifespan so far, Burgess points to the fund's component earmarked for online distribution of content. "It was designed to help companies market their offline product on websites, then-newfangled websites," she says, adding that over the years "we obviously had to change that to allow the online distribution of online product."Likewise, some of the dollar-amount caps on funding individual projects have become outdated with inflation. Although resources are always at a premium, Burgess says the fund would like to be a larger partner in those projects showing the most potential for breakthrough success, while simultaneously maintaining its role as an incubator for more prototypical ventures."We're looking at how provide more support to projects that are more market-ready, more commercially viable, without sacrificing any of the support that we provide to more emerging projects, projects that aren't as far along in their development," she says.As well, Burgess says Telefilm would like to more finely tune the aid it provides to successful applicants depending on their product, its stage in the development life cycle, the type of market they're targeting, and other factors."In some cases, may be that a company needs some professional development assistance for its management...whether that's marketing skills, business skills, mentorship," says Burgess. "In other cases, it may be this project is very far along, it's got a lot of market interest in it, but it just needs a push over the edge so that it actually makes it to the marketplace."Thankfully, one thing that seems not in question is the status of the fund itself. Tomorrow Starts Today - which is the group of technology-forward programs at Heritage that the Canadian Culture Online Program falls under - had its funding secured through to 2009-2010 under the 2005 Liberal budget, before the last federal election.

Canada New Media Fund faces five-year review

Broadcast | April 23, 2007

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