Change Bell Fund rules, media companies ask

On Monday, the CRTC published a complaint from a group of media production companies including CBC/Radio-Canada outlining how, in their view, the BCE Inc.-supported Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, or Bell Fund, falls short in the evaluation, allocation and governance of its Canadian media funding. The Bell Fund is a CRTC-regulated certified independent production fund (CIPF) that receives money from sources including broadcasters and tangible benefit packages — money from the outcome of broadcast deals. It funds the "creation and development of excellent Canadian digital/TV multi-platform projects," according to its website. The latest round of funding came from Bell’s acquisition of Corus Entertainment Inc.-owned Series+ and Historia channels. The complaint comes after the Bell Fund introduced a TV program pilot project last month to fund production of “market-driven Canadian content in the genres of lifestyle, drama and comedy series,” according to its website. According to the group’s complaint, CBC and other organizations including the Canadian Media Producer’s Association (CMPA), TVO, Télé-Québec, OUTtv Network Inc., Blue Ant Media Inc., Groupe Média TFO, TV5 Québec Canada, and Groupe V Média Inc. allege that the current TV Program plans don’t conform to the regulations set forth in the CRTC’s 2016 CIPF framework. The complaint pointed to the CRTC requirement that the funding be fair and have no conflicts of interest. The group’s issue with allocation stems from the fact that they believe the TV program spending “envelopes” don’t correspond with a measure of the share of historical spending by media producers on different media types (excluding sports and news), as the Bell Fund claims. According to its website, the Bell Fund’s TV program plans to reserve 65 per cent of its spending on “the major production funders ,” meaning players whose Canadian production expenditure (CPE) in 2016 was over $125 million for English programming and $50 million for French programming. Following that, 20 per cent is reserved for smaller private broadcasters spending less than above, and 15 per cent for public and educational producers. The complaint says that this allocation is preferential for the larger players in the industry, because 65 per cent of the Bell Fund will go to a group which only had 57 per cent of the CPE in 2016. Additionally, “under the TV Program rules Bell Media, which is affiliated with the Bell Fund, is a major funding recipient with a guarantee of almost 31% of the entire fund despite the fact that its eligible CPE is only 27% of the total eligible CPE in 2016. This is a clear preference for a Bell company by the Bell Fund contrary to the ,” read the complaint. Similarly, since the TV program only allows smaller broadcasters and public broadcasters to apply twice, whereas it gives MPFs unlimited applications, the complaint alleges it again favours the larger media organizations. “Guidelines that significantly favour three major broadcasters (i.e., Bell Media, Corus and Quebecor) will promote their programming preferences at the expense of other types of programming and, hence, undermine the Commission’s CIPF and diversity policy objectives,” said the complaint. Finally, the complaint resurfaces an issue from 2014. It said the Bell Fund was not in compliance with CIPF policy because only 5 out of 8 of its board of directors members are independant, it is one member below the two-thirds threshold required by the CRTC. The complaint requests that the regulator restore the two-third threshold like it asked for in 2014, and have the fund “revise the structure, eligibility and application process of the TV Program to comply with the requirements of the CIPF Policy.” The Bell Fund did not return a request for comment. According to its latest available annual report from 2016, the Bell Fund provided $21.3 million in grants to 176 projects.

Change Bell Fund rules, media companies ask

Brief | May 15, 2018

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Change Bell Fund rules, media companies ask

Brief | May 15, 2018

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