Gender Parity

In March of 2017, the CMF announced a series of tangible measures to increase the number of women in key roles on CMF-funded productions. These include concrete changes to the CMF’s guidelines and policies, a commitment to achieving gender parity in all juries that are put in place to evaluate projects, and support for third-party initiatives such as the Academy’s Apprenticeship for Women Directors. 

As demonstrated by research conducted in different markets around the world and by the CMF’s own statistics, women are underrepresented in leadership categories in the screen-based industries: prior to the introduction of the gender parity measures, on average, for content the CMF invests in, women in leadership positions represented 17 per cent of directors, 34 per cent of writers and 39 per cent of producers. In this context, the CMF introduced measures in 2017-2018 within its funding programs to increase the number of women in the key creative positions of producer, director, and writer in television; and in digital media, the key creative positions of producer, director, programmer, and designer.

In the 2017-2018 Performance Envelope and Development Envelope allocations, broadcasters were required to spend a minimum of 15% of their allocations on projects where at least 40% of the total number of key creative positions were held by women. CMF also proposed a target of 25% of the allocations.

Broadcasters exceeded the target by a large margin. 83.3% of broadcasters with Performance Envelope allocations met the 15% requirement and 80.6% met or exceeded the 25% target. 6 broadcasters did not meet the requirement. 95.7% of broadcasters with Development Envelopes met or exceeded both the 15% requirement and the 25% target (one broadcaster did not meet the requirement).

In the selective programs (Convergent and Experimental), extra ranking points were given to projects that had at least 40% of women in key roles. In addition, two out of three juries involved in selection met parity in their members.

In the Convergent Stream, 107 applications or 68.2%, received the extra points for the gender parity. A total of 16 projects close to the cut-off line or 10.2%, were accepted because they had the gender points. 9 projects close to the cut-off line or 5.7%, were refused because they did not receive the gender points.

In the Experimental Stream, of the 329 applications reviewed, 96 or 29.2%, received the extra points for gender parity. A total of 19 projects close to the cut-off line or 5.8%, were accepted because they had the gender points. 31 projects close to the cut-off line or 9.4%, were refused because they did not receive the gender points.

The results of the program requirements are shown in the charts below, representing the overall percentage of women in key creative positions compared to the total of men and women in CMF-funded projects. As 2017-2018 is the first year of the systematic collection of gender data, it can be seen as a benchmark for comparison to future years. With a 50% share of women in key creative positions as a target by 2020, CMF-funded projects are already in a positive position for television, while digital media projects need additional growth to meet the target.

(projects shown include production and development stages)

Over all television projects, women filled 40.1% of key creative roles. The genre category with the highest participation of women in key roles is Children’s & Youth, while Variety & Performing Arts showed the lowest level of women in key roles. English and French projects show similar levels of participation by women by genre; however, the French projects are a few percentage points lower.

	Less than $100K	Between $100K and $250K	Between $250K and $400K	Between $400K and $800K	Between $800K and $1,750K	Over $1,750K
# of applications	138	129	59	102	35	21

Projects with smaller budgets (which make up more than half of the applications shown) have above 40% women in key roles. Projects with the largest budgets are over 50% participation of women in key roles. 

(Experimental projects shown were funded through the Innovation, Commercial, and Web Series programs)

Over all Experimental projects, women filled 31.4% of key creative roles. Web Series brought up the level with 10 percentage points higher in the participation of women than other types of Experimental projects combined. Software projects had the lowest level of women in key roles.

	Less than $300K	Between $300K and $500K	Between $500K and $700K	Between $700K and $1,300K	Over $1,300K
# of applications	20	37	15	17	14

Interestingly, the level of women participating in key roles in Experimental Stream projects increases by budget size with one exceptional category. Projects with budgets of over $1.3M have the lowest level of women leadership at 15%.

Back to top