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. 

Sales by funding year $M

2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015	2015-2016	Total
112.6	80.7	88.7	6.1	288.1

2012-2013 projects have been on the market long enough to achieve a critical mass in sales (the value is cumulative from the start of reporting). It is a positive indicator that projects funded in 2014-2015 have achieved $8.0M more in sales than 2013-2014 projects, despite a shorter time on the market.

In the 2015-2016 reporting period, there were 901 projects reporting (some reporting $0 sales). 1487 projects reported in 2016-2017. As there is now a critical mass of projects reporting, the statistics will focus on the sales reported in 2016-2017, which may be a benchmark for future trending. A total of 384 projects reported sales (greater than $0) from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016 totalling $90.0M. In contrast, 2015-2016 had 241 projects reporting. In 2016-2017 sales, 257 projects with sales revenues were English and 110 were French, with 11 Aboriginal- and five Mandarin-language projects, and one Farsi project also reporting sales.

45 English drama projects reported $44.0M in sales or 48.9% of the total. 158 English documentaries reported sales, 41.1% of all projects, but only 19.2% of the dollar value.

The highest total sales revenue reported in 2016-2017 per English drama project was $15.1M. English Children’s & Youth sales per project reached $4.3M and English Documentary had a sale at $4.6M. French Drama projects sales reached $493K 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 country (not combined with any other country or region) with the greatest value of sales outside of World, Canada, and the US, was France with $3.6M in sales reported. The highest average sale was for world-wide distribution, at $140K and the lowest average sale was $16K within the Middle East and Africa region.

Experimental Stream

The Experimental Stream upgraded in 2015-2016 from manual reporting to electronic reporting. For this reason and to harmonize the statistics with the Convergent Stream, the charts show sales reported from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016.

Although rich interactive media and software record some sales, games report the great majority of revenue in 2016-2017. Total sales reported are $42.2M for 75 projects. In 2015-2016, Experimental producers reported $14.1M in sales. The difference was due to a $31.0M in sales for one game project. Excluding the sales for this one outstanding project, an average project sales would be around $150K. However, due to a very wide range in sales amounts, the median sales reside at only $5000 (in other words, half of 2016-2017 sales are under $5000 per project).

The greatest specified territory is Europe at $11.0M. The United States and Asia are close with $9.7M and $9.2M in 2016-2017 sales respectively. It is possible that the low amount for Canada would be supplemented with sales in the “World” category.

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