Kelly Lynne Ashton is Director of Policy at the Writers Guild of Canada and one of the country's most wired industry executives. An entertainment lawyer turned writer advocate, KLA is an expert on new media financing. She has the added super power of being able to understand all those crazy policy documents that the government puts out. Pretty amazing skill set. Which is why I turned to Kelly Lynne to clear up some of my confusion about the the new Canada Media Fund. and what it means to digital creators.
Q
Kelly Lynne, creators have been quite unsettled about the Canada Media Fund and what it means to the funding landscape. As I understand it, funding for television projects and new media projects have been dumped into a single fund. What does that mean for digital content creators? Will there be any money for stand-alone digital products?
A
There will be an allocation for standalone. The $14.5 million that was the Telefilm CNMF will be combined with the current CTF digital pilot project money ($10 million) and possibly even more money to build a healthy fund for standalone digital. The exact allocation is one of the issues to be worked out after the new board is put in place in June but the idea is that digital is the growth area so there needs to be an increasingly larger pool of money allocated to it. Eligibility and guidelines will be worked out by next December. On top of that money though, tv projects will now have to have ancillary digital components (websites, mobile etc.) in order to qualify for funding. Again, we don’t have the details yet but the Broadcaster Performance Envelopes will fund both tv and digital components of projects. That means potentially less money for tv but more for digital.
Q
Is there other good news for digital content creators in the CMF?
A
I think the big picture good news is that Heritage sees digital as the growth area. They understand that audiences want to access their television online and that they want original digital entertainment. Heritage is trying to set up a fund that is flexible enough to support the digital environment as it grows. In the short term the good news is that tv producers will need to partner with or hire digital content creators in order to access their television funding. This should open up a lot more job opportunities.
Q
This is the secret bonus question and you will win 10 000 points if you can answer it. Has a funding model emerged for the development and production of digital content? If so, what is it? If not, where are the gaps.
A
You’re kidding me right? The only clear business model right now is for those who control access to the content. By that I mean Internet Service Providers (i.e. Rogers, Shaw, Bell etc.) and platform/device producers (ie Apple, RIM). This is why groups are asking the CRTC to impose a levy on the ISPs – they’re earning revenues from controlling access to content so should contribute to its creation. As for the actual content creators or distributors nothing has been proven yet. Advertising is small but growing. Subscription works in limited cases such as kids or massive multiplayer games. Licensing content such as games to portals is generating some revenues. What seems to me to be the big gap is advertisers understanding the value of the kind of very specific demographics interactive content can generate and identify and then paying for it. They’ll get there eventually.
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From your lips, KLA... So there it is, CMF is good news for digital creators, but we still have a ways to go before we can actually put together a full budget.
