Sales and Export

The CMF requires all funded projects to report on sales in order to obtain more consistent information on the success of CMF projects. Reported sales are for export and domestic markets. The reporting requirement began for 2012-2013 projects.

Convergent Stream

These sales are outside of the production financial structure and have been reported after delivery to the first broadcast window. Note that there is no independent means of verification of reported results. 

2,147 projects reported in 2017-2018, of which 505 (23.5%) reported sales greater than $0 from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017 totalling $77.8M. In contrast, 2016-2017 had 1,487 projects reporting sales. In 2017-2018 sales, 323 projects with sales revenues were English and 165 were French, with 13 Aboriginal- and three Mandarin-language projects, and one Farsi project also reporting sales.

English Children’s & Youth projects saw the greatest amount of sales at $32.3M for 78 projects. A total of 53 English Drama projects reported $27.4M in sales or 38.8% of the total, but the highest average sales per project of $518K. English documentaries reported 189 sales, or 58.5% of all projects, but only 15.6% of the dollar value.

French Drama reported $5.9M in sales for 62 projects.

The highest total sales revenue reported in 2017-2018 per English Children’s & Youth project was $9.6M. In 2016-2017, the largest sales per project (drama) was at $15.1M. English Drama sales per project reached $7.7M and English Documentary had a sale at $1.9M. French Drama projects sales reached $676K for an individual project.

Projects reported sales to a wide variety of territories that covered the globe. The territories were as specific as Germany or as broad as the world excluding Canada. For statistical purposes the sales were aggregated by region in the chart above. Multiple regions (e.g., Europe and Asia) in one reported sale were included in World. The specific countries (not combined with any other country or region) with the greatest value of sales outside of World, Canada, and the US, were the United Kingdom and Ireland, with $7.1M in sales reported. The highest average sale was for the United Kingdom and Ireland, at $101K and the lowest average sale was $13K within the Eastern European region (including Russia).

Despite the increase in projects reporting sales year-over-year, the amount of sales reported have decreased since the high of 2015. In 2015, the average per-project sale for English Drama was $2.5M compared to $518K in 2017. Three projects in that year reported sales of over $10M. In contrast, 2017 had two English Drama projects reporting sales of around $7M each as the highest sales per project.

Experimental Stream

Although rich interactive media and software record some sales, games report the great majority of revenue in 2017-2018. Total sales reported in 2017-2018 are $60.7M for 107 projects. In 2016-2017, Experimental producers reported $44.6M in sales. The significant increase was partly due to eight projects with sales of over $1M each. However, due to a very wide range in sales amounts, the median sales reside at only $17K (in other words, half of 2017-2018 sales are under $17K per project).

The greatest amount of sales for a specified territory is the United States at $9.9M. Europe and Asia are close with $8.7M and $7.5M in 2017-2018 sales respectively. It is possible that the low amount for Canada would be supplemented with sales in the “Worldwide” category.

Many projects that reported sales in 2016-2017 also reported substantial sales in 2017-2018. With the addition of new projects reporting, total sales per year have increased over three times between 2015-2016 and 2017-2018.

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