In fact, overall, the independent news fund represents about $13 million. There will be about 20 independent broadcasters from all over Canada who will benefit from it as of September 1, 2017.
As we mentioned in our brief, we are satisfied with this measure from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Firstly, this fund will maintain the level of local news produced by the different stations. Secondly, when the independent television stations go before the CRTC to have their licence renewed, the CRTC will examine whether the level of local news presented should be maintained or increased, according to the circumstances of each station.
It is important to compare this fund with other funds in the past. In the past, there was a small fund for independent stations to offset the non-distribution of their signals by satellites. It was called the Small Market Local Programming Fund, the SMLPF. The CRTC eliminated that small fund in order to create the new one. So, there were already some funds available from that fund and we benefited from it over the past years. In addition, from 2009 to 2012, we received support from the LPIF, the Local Program Improvement Fund.
According to the estimates we did over the past few weeks, these two funds were larger that what we are going to receive through the new fund created by the CRTC. This means that the new fund for local news will help to maintain the local production levels we had, but it will not help us to produce other local programs that are very much appreciated by our audiences.
We at Télé Inter-Rives have often been cited as an example by the CRTC for having used the funds given to us over the past years to produce new local programming. You will understand that we are a bit disappointed by this new fund.