The CRTC Requires Major Television Groups to Allocate $5.5M Annually to “Music Programming”
Today, the CRTC announced that major television groups in both language markets—including Bell, Rogers, and Corus Entertainment—will be required to allocate an average of $5.5 million per year to support the production of musical programs by FACTOR and MUSICACTION. These expenses will be imposed from 2019 to 2022.
In recent years, the CRTC made decisions that ended all measures that formally ensured the funding of music videos. The English market was affected by the removal of a provision that required Bell Media to fund MuchFACT, as well as the loss of the Video Advantage Program (VAP) previously funded by Corus Entertainment’s Country Music Television (CMT).
CIMA estimates that the loss of both funds represented $6 million, or 87% of available funding in the English market, for the production of Canadian music videos. (Only FACTOR remained funded.)
In January 2018, CIMA and l’ADISQ made a joint submission to the CRTC asking all major television groups to contribute equitably to the financing of Canadian music videos in order to replace the $6 million loss as well as a $1 million loss to the French market. Our proposed solution was a dedicated portion of Canadian Programing Expenditures (CPE) and Programs of National Interest (PNI) contributions be given to a fund (FACTOR/MusicAction) that would support the financing of music videos.
CIMA is pleased to see that the CRTC has announced measures that will inject approximately $16.5 million over three years, an average of $5.5 million per year for “musical programming.”
While the details of how this investment into FACTOR and MUSICACTION programming will break down remains unclear, CIMA will keep its members up to date on developments as they come. For now, you can read the official announcement here.