Throughout September and October, a road show of sorts has been crossing the country. Though it offered up less flash than a U2 tour (and probably sold fewer T-shirts), the Canadian Television Fund's 18-date Canada Media Fund Industry Consultation tour nevertheless drew crowds of stakeholders in stops from Halifax to Whitehorse and parts between.

The tour concentrated on explaining 13 key policy issues (everything from funding allocations to ROI, documentary programming to regional production), and opened the floor for local industry players, giving them an opportunity to ask questions.

Here's how things panned out in three regional centers.

IN TORONTO

In Toronto, a nervous industry continues to look for the devil in the emerging policy details.

"We will do this as practically as we can," Canadian Television Fund president Valerie Creighton promised as she explained how public/private funding for primetime TV and interactive digital content will be fused into the CMF.

That's no small promise as industry players wrestle over definitions as the CMF evolves into two streams. The first "convergent stream" will aim to fund projects distributed on at least two platforms, including TV, and based on the existing Broadcaster Performance Envelope system. The second stream, the successor to the Canada New Media Fund as it merges with the CTF, will be for "experimental" product, or interactive digital content created for a host of platforms.

Here's where Creighton conceded complexity and confusion.

The CTF initially saw convergent product as one work on two platforms, with TV not required as the first platform. But Canadian Heritage in recent directives aims to "encourage" original content on the second platform. Suddenly, the convergent stream will mean creating two works on two platforms.

Likewise, CMF policy makers are fumbling for a better word than "experimental" to describe the second stream. After all, the CMF aims to promote four traditional TV genres - drama, docs, kids and performing arts - not easily served by a digital stream directed more at creating websites, interactive games and mobile apps.

The Heritage directive to CMF policy makers also stresses funding for "original, first-run television programming in prime time," with what constitutes original, first-run and primetime still to be defined. (For example, primetime for kids programming is different than that for adult fare.)

Kevin Wright, senior vice-president of programming at Astral Television Networks, also urged CMF policy makers in Toronto to recognize increasing viewership across multiple platforms, including video-on-demand, beyond primetime TV audiences measured by BBM Canada.

"It's a careful balance of an established formula, while evaluating new forms of measurement," Wright said.

But perhaps the biggest bugbear in the evolving CMF rules is allowing first-time eligibility for broadcaster-affiliated projects. Indie producers in Toronto see their possible demise if broadcasters are allowed to deal directly with showrunners to develop a project, and enlist an executive producer to control the finances.

"There is concern about broadcaster in-house productions," Creighton conceded, while cautioning Heritage wants a "majority of funds" remaining in the production sector. That means producers and broadcasters will now fight over the size of the CMF allocation for broadcaster-affiliated and in-house production, and whether it will be capped.

Another sticking point is regional production. Toronto-based producers urged the CMF framers to recognize their city's superior infrastructure to create the high-quality, high-impact TV shows Heritage wants from the restructured fund. Conversely, regional producers want assurances they will get their fair cut of CMF financing.

"It's extremely important that this new fund maintains its commitment to the regions," Floyd Kane, vice-president of creative and business affairs at Nova Scotia-based Halifax Films, urged.

~Etan Vlessing

IN VANCOUVER

As might be expected, hot-button topics at the CMF consultations in Vancouver included the thorny issues of regional incentives and in-house broadcaster production.

The B.C. production community is clearly uneasy about the plans for the new fund, and has lots of questions. The CMF road show, however, provided relatively few answers, although the CTF's Creighton attempted to ease concerns.

"We're not throwing out the baby with the bathwater," she stressed. "Surprises shouldn't be wide and vast... We have an eye on not destabilizing the industry."

Creighton asked the community to be patient, noting that it will likely take three years for full integration of the new CMF.

"You won't get everything you want in the guidelines, but we will keep the dialogue going," she said.

Heritage says one of the new fund's mandates is to "level the playing field."

"Ontario producers thought leveling the playing field meant the end of the regional incentive," said Creighton, noting particular pressure from the center that Vancouver should be ineligible for regional status.

Understandably, that doesn't sit well with the Vancouver community. Paperny Films president David Paperny stressed that particularly in these difficult financial times, B.C. producers' distance from broadcasters puts them at a disadvantage.

"The decisions are made in Toronto and we aren't there," says Paperny. "My friends in Toronto take broadcasters out to dinner and are in their face all the time. They are getting more of an increasingly smaller pie.