Program Administration

2018-2019 marked the 13th year the CMF and Telefilm Canada (Telefilm) worked together on program administration. The Services Agreement with Telefilm for the administration of CMF Program was first established in 2005-2006.

The CMF Program Administrator | Telefilm Canada (CMFPA) received 1,810 applications in 2018-2019, 8 % less than the previous year (1,970). Of the total number of applications received, 1,292 were funded, down 1.4% from 2017-2018. The CMFPA also reviewed final costs of more than 900 files, processed about 2,400 disbursements and validated that more than 1,773 conditions, not related to a disbursement, were respected.

There were 106 value-added, unfunded digital media components for production submitted as part of the television component.

Number of applications approved in 2018-2019

In the Convergent and Experimental streams combined, the CMFPA provided pre-application consulting services for more than 388 projects so that producers could verify the eligibility of their projects prior to submitting an application. 

In 2018-2019, the CMFPA held outreach meetings across the country as well as training sessions on the new Dialogue platform. The Broadcasters were also included in the Dialogue system to create a more efficient centralised application process. All files that had been received and were still administered through the old platform were converted to Dialogue. 

In mid 2018-2019, new Administrative Service Levels targets were agreed upon for the main steps of the program administration process to provide a better indicator of turnaround time. For this year, they were largely not met due to the number of factors. First, system users, CMFPA's staff and applicants, had to adjust their behaviors to comply with the requirements of the new work methodology. Second, before the full conversion to Dialogue, analysts, managers and applicants had to work in two systems, creating confusion and delays. Third, in order to proceed to the conversion, producers were asked to submit closing documents for as many projects as possible in the old system to ease the conversion process; this has created an overflow of documentation to review by the CMFPA, once again slowing the process. Finally, oversubscription in many of the programs also contributed to the impediment to meet the Administrative Service Levels targets.

Enhanced tools to read, interpret and report on the data were also developed progressively throughout the year.  During the transition period, CMFPA remained available to producers to answer questions and provide updates. 

Turnaround time (target days) - 2018-2019

The main steps of the Program administration process are:

1. Eligibility: to assess eligibility of the application to the program
2. Due diligence: reasonable verification taken in order to ensure proper risk management and compliance for the purposes of contracting
3. Payment: 1st disbursement, amendment, rough cut or beta version and final cost. From reception of all required documents to payment
4. Amendment: post contracting amendment excluding final costs
5. Final costs: final evaluation of the project based on the actual final costs.