Source : Toronto Star

Telefilm Canada, the country's biggest funding source for film and television production, announced yesterday a new deal with CBC to produce feature-length documentary films.

It served as a footnote to an already busy week for the agency, which has seen its reach and influence expand dramatically since the start of the Banff Television Festival on Friday.

On Monday, Heritage Minister Liza Frulla announced that Telefilm would take over the administration of the Canadian Television Fund, an agency with which it shared a complex relationship that perplexed television producers for more than a decade.

The plan suddenly added about $175 million - $100 million of it drawn from private companies in the television industry - to Telefilm's already large portfolio. The move puts about $425 million in cultural funding in-house there, dwarfing all other funding agencies.

However, the consolidation may not be permanent. Frulla said Telefilm's control of the fund was on a contractual basis only. "They'll have to perform or they'll lose it," she said in an interview yesterday.

The CBC announcement is meagre by comparison - a $1.5 million commitment by Telefilm for the 2005-06 season - but it's part of a larger movement expanding the role of the agency, and its executive director, Wayne Clarkson, in how - and what - film and television is made in the country.

The Canadian Television Fund consolidation amounts to a kind of one-stop shopping for television and film producers looking for federal cash for projects.

It also came as a relief to several producers on hand in Banff for the announcement.

"It simplifies things tremendously, having one set of analysis for our applications," said Stephen Stohn, the executive producer of such shows as DeGrassi: The Next Generation and Instant Star.

Over the years, Stohn, like many television producers, had wearied of the two-pronged process of applying for funding, when Telefilm and the fund functioned as two separate boards handing out money. Often, producers would need approval from both for a show to go ahead. "Sometimes, you'd get approval from one and not the other. It left you wondering what was going on," he said.

Frulla, who also announced a $100 million commitment to television funding through 2006-07, agreed.

"Before, it was a headache. I wanted to avoid the insecurity the milieu has had to live with each time. Now we want to work in the next budget so the industry can plan ahead."

Michelle Marion, director of original programming at The Movie Network, also welcomed the news, with some reservations. "It makes the point of access easier and clearer," she said. "But the fact is that the fund is still dramatically oversubscribed." The same day as Frulla's announcement, the Coalition of Canadian Audio-Visual Unions released a report saying that spending on television drama last year hit its lowest point since 1998.

© The Toronto Star