September 2, 2008
Canada New Media Fund is toast
by Allen
The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Conservative government has eliminated the Canada New Media Fund, a $14.5 million annual program that was funded by the Department of National Heritage but administered by Telefilm Canada. There is still no official word from Telefilm, and in fact the CNMF website is still online with nary a mention of this.
While we at Plank have had questions about the way the Fund has been run over the years*, it was still a very important program that did a decent job supporting our industry. It is possible the Tories are going to replace it with some other program of their own invention, or perhaps it is just part of their overall cost-cutting, especially in fields of culture and the arts.
We'll wait to hear the official announcement, but for now, it doesn't look like we can count on the government supporting our industry for the near future.
*we had issues long before we were rejected for funding this year! ;)
This is definitely a shame and a bad piece of news for our industry. If you haven't already I'd suggest exploring the SRED tax credit - it's a viable funding option if you've put any time and cost into developing web technology (CMS etc.). In typical CDN government style the process is quite long but we've had success with the credit in the past.
Anyway, keep up the great work guys.
Jonathan Kochis | September 12, 2008