Toronto, January 14, 2022 – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) will renew its strategic partnership with the Independent Production Fund (IPF) on the Development Packaging Program designed to support the development of high quality, Canadian, original, scripted short-form drama series. This collaboration will leverage resources from both organizations to encourage more positive outcomes in the development of this booming format. The budget of the Development Packaging Program: Short Form Scripted Series is set at $600,000.

The focus of the program is to support outstanding story-driven content by providing funding that will enhance the development of strong creative materials, encourage the incubation of new talents and the participation of experienced professionals, provide opportunities for insightful business development and establish the quality and reputation of projects proceeding through the program.

To be eligible for support, projects must be new and original; be conceived as scripted, episodic short-form dramatic content with multiple episodes and episodic running times that are less than 20 minutes; have a confirmed creative team at the time of application and be developed in either English or in French.

The maximum funding available for each eligible project is $30,000. Applications will be initially received and evaluated by a Selection Committee overseen by the IPF with final decisions made by representatives from the IPF and the CMF.

Applicants may begin to apply to the IPF in February 2022 and the deadline to apply is March 1, 2022.

About the Canada Media Fund

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) fosters, develops, finances and promotes the production of Canadian content and applications for all audiovisual media platforms. The CMF guides Canadian content towards a competitive global environment by fostering industry innovation, rewarding success, enabling a diversity of voice and promoting access to content through public and private sector partnerships. The CMF receives financial contributions from the Government of Canada and Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors.

Independent Production Fund

The Independent Production Fund was established in 1991 to provide financial support for dramatic television series created by Canadian independent producers for Canadian private broadcasters. In 2010, the IPF expanded its mandate to include an experimental pilot program to finance drama series for the web. This program now continues to support content creators of dramatic short form series created for digital platforms. In addition, in 2020 new funding and support for the development and packaging of scripted short-form series launched. In 2018 the IPF’s financial support for dramatic broadcast television series was also reinstated.