Evidence of meeting #48 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was london.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer, Canada Media Fund
That is under the experimental stream, yes.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Do you have to take a step back from that and ask what kind of area you get into as far as experimental is concerned, before you get to the jury process?
Director, Program Management, Canada Media Fund
We take the other criteria internally, such as the business plan and the distribution strategy. For innovation, we say in the guidelines what innovation is for us. Innovation can be found in content, in technology, or in business models.
We have identified four different levels of innovation. Innovation can be an iteration, an enhancement—that's not the term we use, but it's something like that—a differentiation, or groundbreaking, something that has never been done.
If you are revolutionary, you have a better chance of being selected by the jury, because you'll rank higher in the pyramid on this criterion. That is the main one. If you have only an iteration of something that has already been done, there is a chance, because the competition is so high, that you won't be selected.
Determining these criteria at the beginning is where it's important for the CMF to consult with stakeholders. They give us ideas on how they think it should work. At the beginning, they knew more than we did, in fact. We are really benefiting from asking them how we should be evaluating these files.
For sure there is always subjectivity. That's why, when we hire a jury, for example, each project is read by at least three jury members so that we can have a good balance of opinions. We take all these opinions together. It's not only one person who decides if it's innovative or not. All projects are read by at least three people, and there's debate during the comparison we do. That's how it works.
On the convergence side, for the performance envelope program, which is the main program we run, we do not choose the project. It's in the hands of the broadcasters. They give the producers the opportunity to come to the CMF to have money from an envelope we give them at the beginning of the year.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Getting back to the experimental side of things, do you look at strictly content when it comes to the game, or would you also consider the platform? It seems to me that the games are either the first person or not. I'm not a gamer, so.... If somebody comes to you and says that they can do it on a different type of platform—for example, the games on the video screens on the seatbacks of airplanes; maybe someone has a new technology for that—is that what you consider to be revolutionary?
Director, Program Management, Canada Media Fund
If it's something that was never done before and it's the first time a new technology is developed specifically for a new market, yes, it could be considered innovative. Yes, it would be eligible. We are financing technology, and we are looking for innovation in technology.
We saw some games where the content was revolutionary. I'm thinking, for example, of Papo & Yo. The way they were telling the stories and the way the players were engaged with the story were different. For sure in the gaming industry we see a lot of innovation more in the technology. However, if it's only to port, as they say, one project from one platform to another platform, if they don't develop a really different technology and they are using a technology that everybody else is using, then it probably won't be eligible.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
It won't be as high on the eligibility scale.
Would that encompass many of the big players we've already heard from, the Ubisofts of the world? What if they come up with something revolutionary? Do you consider that?
Director, Program Management, Canada Media Fund
I don't know if it's a big player, but most of the bigger players in the gaming industry are not Canadian companies. They are working in Canada, but their head offices are not in Canada. We don't see those projects because they are not Canadian companies. It's hard for us to comment on that. But many Canadian companies are developing their own IPs. They are getting bigger and bigger budgets as they get experience.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Certainly that wouldn't exclude them from being considered from funding of a revolutionary product they may develop, despite their size, would it? It's the criterion of being Canadian that's of great importance. Ubisoft was a bad example.
Director, Program Management, Canada Media Fund
Yes, they need to own the rights and they need to be Canadian.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
That's interesting.
What constitutes the jury on what is experimental in this particular case? As I say, you decide that a video game is a possibility. Do you select the jury then? But you don't do it that way. You select the jury, and then they decide what it is. They could look at a whole assortment of streams of entertainment, we'll say.
Vice-President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer, Canada Media Fund
Yes. When we select the jury we have to try to gather people from the various parts of the digital media industry to be able to evaluate these projects. Then, as Nathalie has mentioned, we have a number of jurors look at each project to evaluate it.
We don't establish up front a certain percentage of funding for games or for software applications. Each competes with the other on an equal footing, so we allow innovation to come from whatever aspect of the digital media industry.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Thank you. That's a gentle way to cut me off, isn't it?
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome. I wasn't here the first time around, so I have some other questions for you.
Can you explain to me what the digital media performance measurement framework is, and how that affects the experimental side of your program?
Vice-President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer, Canada Media Fund
We've just established the digital media measurement framework. It's a framework to measure the impact of the digital media projects we fund. As in television, where there's a standard for average median audience, etc., it's to come up with a measurement to compare one project against another, whatever the appropriate metrics are.
So far in that industry there are lots of different metrics, but there's not really an established industry standard. Here's where we've actively engaged the industry to come up with a framework that we're testing this year. We're looking at a variety of metrics to see whether they are appropriate measures for the variety of digital media projects that we fund, both through the experimental stream and the convergent stream.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
My academic background is statistics. What you're developing this year, I'm assuming, is like a baseline, something you measure against in the future, correct? Is that where you are with this?
Vice-President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer, Canada Media Fund
Yes. It is very much a starting point for us. It likely will evolve over time, and we've established what our advisory committee has agreed is a good place to start. We're actually applying it against a number of projects this year and we will look at those results to see if it accurately measures the performance. Then, if so, we'll go forward with it for now, but it probably will be something that will evolve over time.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
I know this is its first year, so don't think I'm trying to jam you in a corner here, but in its current form, what type of things are you looking at? Are you looking at sales of games as one part of it, or distribution? What types of things do you look at as part of these matrices?
Vice-President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer, Canada Media Fund
Some of the metrics we are looking at include such things as unique individuals, new individuals, sessions, downloads, streams, video starts, user actions, page views, and time spent consuming content. Those are the standard metrics we are going to try to apply to each project.
In addition, we do track other information, such as downloads, to complement, I would say, some of the statistical information that we hope to gather through this process.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Some of these items you are measuring are going to be free. Some of them are going to cost money. Then you have to look at comparing apples and oranges as well. It's a huge challenge. As you said, I don't think there's another type of measurement like this in the industry. This might actually be something that becomes an industry standard. Hopefully that turns out to be the case.
To go back to the experimental projects, you said there were four criteria: team, innovation—innovation being the largest component—the business plan the company has, and the distribution practice.
How do you evaluate distribution practice? Are you looking for more physical distribution, or online distribution? How do you evaluate that?
Director, Program Management, Canada Media Fund
In fact there are many different ways, depending on the types of projects we are financing. For example, if it's an interactive web series, we know that it probably won't go on DVD. We look at what the producer is proposing, to see if it makes sense. Will they succeed? That's another question. But we need to see if they've thought through how they will exploit their projects. Even at the beginning, even when they start doing the production, we want to know if they have an idea of how they will launch their project.
It's different from television. In television, you launch your project and it's done. There's nothing you can do. You do promotion, and broadcasters do promotions around it, but when it's launched, it's over.
On the digital media side, it's very different for many projects, not all types of projects, but many. You have to build your audience. When you launch, you are only starting to exploit your production. You have to create new content, because it's easier than it is for a television production to create new content, and to keep your website, for example, alive, to have audiences come back because you are providing them new content.
We are looking at their strategy, at whether they have thought of how to do that. If we see they are proposing new ways of doing this, they will get more points, because it will be a different way to do that. That's what we are looking for.
In terms of the criteria, we are looking at the distribution strategy—it's very transparent in our evaluation grid—and at the marketing and promotion plan. There's also the targeted audience. If we are financing things that are targeted to the industry, is it to help the producer create content? Sometimes it's targeted to the general public, and we'll look at that. Are they going to launch in Canada or also in international markets?
We also look at whether they have what we call market channel partners, people who will help them exploit their product on different platforms. Some have experience internally in exploiting their assets, but some are producers who don't know how to follow up with all of the promotions. We look at that.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Right.
Part of this is about evaluating the team. That's what you are getting into now. When a production company, or a group or a business, comes to you and says they would like to apply for this, they can go through and see the criteria. They can actually build their application around the criteria you have put out there. They understand what they are getting into and how they are going to be evaluated, which I think is very fair.
You would look at the team. You might invest in the most innovative idea in the world, but you don't have anybody around who can actually market it or distribute it, or who has any experience in the field. You are looking at them coming to you with the marketing plan in place, the business plan in place, and the distribution, and also with an experienced team with some sort of experience of how to get this out.
If someone came to you with some of these pieces missing, would you give them some support in how they could strengthen their application, or is it just entered and that's it; they win or fail based on what they've put in?
Director, Program Management, Canada Media Fund
In fact, once they have applied, we don't communicate with them because, last time, we received 92 projects in production. In fairness to everybody, we do not ask some of them to complete or to enhance their production or their application. We do not communicate with them.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
I'm short of time, so....
