Federal government plays it safe, proposes to maintain Canada Media Fund investment

The federal government has announced that it will maintain the Canada Media Fund (CMF) at 2016-2017 levels.

In its 2018 budget proposal document, Canada’s Liberal government proposed investing $172 million CAD over the next five years, as well as $42.5 million each year afterwards, to bolster the CMF.

“With Canadians increasingly watching content online, contributions from the broadcasting sector to the Canada Media Fund have started to decrease in step with their declining revenues,” reads an excerpt from the 2018 budget document. “To address this issue, the Government has committed to increase its contribution in order to maintain the level of funding in the Canada Media Fund.”

The government did explain that “actual Government contributions” will fluctuate depending on how Canada’s broadcasting sector performs, but the 2018 budget will provide a stable framework to “develop Canadian content and support good jobs, including for our writers, producers, directors, actors and crews.”

Heritage minister Melanie Joly revealed in September 2017 that her ministry had established a $500 million CAD partnership with U.S. streaming giant Netflix to create ‘Netflix Canada’ — a Canadian production housed focused on producing original Canadian content.

It’s interesting to note that the 2018 budget did not make any explicit references to Netflix or any other major online content streaming platform.

Source: Budget 2018