On the former TransCanada Development Fund, which is now the Program Development Fund, we met with the local CBC the other day, because we've been finding over the past year that there's been kind of a disconnect between local producers and CBC locally and nationally in terms of how this fund is set up, how we can access it, and how they can use that money to help us develop new shows. They clarified a lot for us the other day, but one of the alarming things we found out was that they've only allocated $65,000 to Newfoundland to develop new shows. It's laughable. According to them, we've never had any more than that. But the industry is growing, and there are changes to the CTF--development has become even more important in the regions. How are we to develop shows that are going to catch the interest of the national CBC if we only have $65,000 a year to throw at writers and researchers? It's just not enough.
On May 24th, 2007. See this statement in context.