TELUS Corp. moves fund to Canadian Film Centre with $3-million investment

Though exact details won’t be revealed for months, the Canadian Film Centre (CFC) says a $3-million investment by TELUS Corp. will help it strengthen its activities across the film, new media and television sectors. The investment was announced November 24, and sees TELUS’ broadcast and new media fund fall under the film centre’s administration, and re-dubbed the TELUS Innovation Fund for Film, TV & New Media (TELUS Fund). How that fund will be re-shaped, and whether the new money will be used to either support a greater number of projects or provide greater funding to a smaller number of projects won’t be known until approximately next April. A news release announcing the shift notes, however, that it "will enhance existing Canadian Film Centre initiatives in training, production, promotion and scholarships." Further, TELUS will have one of the buildings on the E.P. Taylor estate campus renamed the TELUS Studio, which will house the TELUS Interactive Art & Entertainment program in the Habit@t. The TELUS Foundation’s executive director, Andrea Goertz, who oversees the TELUS Fund, says full details have yet to be worked out, including how much of the new funding might be devoted to new media initiatives. "I think going forward, as far as the Innovation Fund goes and where we’re going to be directing dollars in support of various projects, we haven’t really defined, is it going to be X% new media and Y% film or TV, whether it’s a split there, what are the parameters of which projects get funded, etc. We haven’t really defined any of that. All of the industry, I think, needs to be looked at and we want to determine where the needs are greatest and where we think the greatest talent lies, and we can have the most chance of really promoting the industry and having the greatest success. We’ll be taking a look at that and evolving as time goes on." Officials from the CFC and TELUS declined to comment on the timing of the announcement, made as the relationship between it, Bell Globemedia, the Banff New Media Institute and the Institut National de l’image et du son (INIS) comes to an end (CNM, April 19/01). That was a three-year collaboration dubbed the Bell Globemedia Content Innovation Network, created as part of the benefits package related to BCE Inc.’s takeover of CTV Inc. But, the move does take place in the context of increasing activity by TELUS to battle Bell in the national communications marketplace. Goertz confirms that the shift in administration of the TELUS Fund from the TELUS Foundation to the CFC means it will have a broader, national scope. The TELUS Fund was previously focused on British Columbia and Alberta where TELUS operated as a monopoly telephone company for decades. Goertz notes: "This takes it to a national scope, in keeping with TELUS expanding to be a national company. We want to make sure that when we do direct investments like this that we are supporting our national base, because we are a national company." The CFC’s Ana Seranno would say only of the coincidence with regards to the Globemedia timing that, "a lot of these technology companies that are committed to technological innovation see the CFC, or the Film Centre, as the site where this kind of technological innovation is being applied to the development of Canadian culture. So, they’re really quite eager to support this as much as possible." No matter what shape it takes, the new TELUS Fund will likely be welcome news in an industry reeling from cuts to the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund (Bell Fund), and the dried up reservoirs in Telefilm Canada’s Canada New Media Fund. Goertz says that the investment has been made primarily out of good corporate citizenship. She notes that, "we are striving and committed to being Canada’s premier corporate citizen. We have contributed over $70 million in the past five years to various charitable institutions, philanthropic institutions as well as education that benefit the industry in general. And, so, in terms of how TELUS benefits, we feel that it’s our responsibility to be good corporate citizens, and we give back to the communities in which we live, work and serve. We think it’s important to our employees and our customers that we do give back." It’s likely, though, that TELUS will also benefit in more tangible ways, as well. The company was recently awarded licences to serve Alberta and British Columbia as a television Broadcast Distribution Undertaking (BDU), offering TV-over-DSL services. The company has not yet launched its television service. The service is currently being tested by employees in Edmonton, but there has been no news of when it will be rolled out commercially. When that time comes, however, the company will likely be in the market for innovative convergent content, much like that being offered by telco rivals Bell ExpressVu and MTS Allstream, which are already offering interactive television content to their subscribers. Goertz tells CNM that the investment is unrelated, though, to the company’s new BDU licences, and not part of any benefits package offered to win those from the CRTC. In its May 2002 application for the BDU licences, TELUS requested that the TELUS Fund be certified as an independent production fund, and thus be eligible to receive 20% of the company’s 5% of revenues contribution to Canadian programming. That initial request was denied by the commission when it granted the BDU licences, and the status of the TELUS Fund as an eligible programming fund appears to be in limbo at the regulator, and Goertz says the company is not pursuing certification at this time.

TELUS Corp. moves fund to Canadian Film Centre with $3-million investment

Broadcast | December 6, 2004

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