Apply for a BROADCAST LICENSE

IsumaTV is the world’s first NORTHERN INTERNET DISTRIBUTOR for Inuit and Aboriginal films, TV and new media.

IsumaTV currently streams free over 5000 films in 50 languages in two quality compressions:

• High Bandwidth gives the best quality media streaming on the internet for users with good high-speed broadband;

• Low Bandwidth gives the best quality media streaming on the internet for users with limited, low bandwidth service. This allows most media files to play in remote northern communities with the lowest speed internet.

IsumaTV also offers Best Quality Video-on-Demand (VOD) distribution in Standard Definition, 720pHD or 1080pHD to filmmakers who want to deliver films by internet to viewers, theatres, festivals or digital projection screenings. VOD filmmakers choose how, when and for what fees they want their films to be available. Best Quality VOD can be used to sell films as pay-per-view, distribute films to institutional buyers or deliver films – in their best original quality – to festivals or digital theatres around the world.

AS A CANADIAN NORTHERN INTERNET DISTRIBUTOR, IsumaTV may be able to issue ELIGIBLE LICENSE FEES or Eligible Minimum Guarantees to enable Inuit and Aboriginal filmmakers to trigger access to national financing from the CMF Aboriginal Fund or Telefilm Feature Film Fund. IsumaTV commitments of Eligible License Fees or Eligible Minimum Guarantees of 10% or more of a film’s production budget allows the filmmaker to apply to CMF, Telefilm, Provincial or Territorial film commissions and regional/federal Tax Credits to obtain the remaining 90% needed to complete the film’s financing. This LEVERAGE of a broadcaster/distributor’s first commitment allows filmmakers to multiply or ‘trigger’ production financing dollars at up to 10-to-1.

This change in the 2010-11 Aboriginal Language Fund guidelines allows producers to propose projects to IsumaTV for Eligible License Fees with or without a conventional TV broadcaster. IsumaTV Eligible License Fees may be used to apply for CMF Convergence Stream financing of up to $400,000 for production and $200,000 for digital media. IsumaTV accepts license proposals both for conventional linear TV productions or new forms of production made specifically for the internet.

More information on CMF Guidelines:

Aboriginal Program Funding

Experimental Stream

Convergent Stream

View Internet Distribution Panel from the imagineNATIVE Film Festival Oct 23, 2010

 

HOW TO APPLY for IsumaTV Eligible License Fees

Send your proposal to info@isuma.tv.

• There is no application form. Explain your project in your own words or your own language: who you are, what you want to do and how much it costs.

• You can apply by Video Submission: use your webcam or any other camera to explain your project in your own language in your own way. Send us your video by mail to: IsumaTV, 4521 Clark Street, suite 302, Montreal, Quebec, H2T 2T3. Or send us your video electronically, by Facebook or uploaded to IsumaTV.

• Look at IsumaTV to understand the kinds of films we show. Our priority is to license projects that work best on our website, that are made for the internet or that are original and important in some way.

• IsumaTV can only offer licenses to Canadian Aboriginal films that can qualify under the CMF Aboriginal Program, and we prioritize projects that are created from an Aboriginal perspective.

• An IsumaTV License or Minimum Guarantee is NOT a grant. We are buying the right to show your film on our website. An IsumaTV license or guarantee MUST follow the rules of the Canadian media system. We can offer a producer between 10% to 50% of your TOTAL production budget. The rest of your budget has to come from other sources. This is called Leverage. An IsumaTV license or guarantee can be your first commitment that allows you to apply to other sources to ‘trigger’ or ‘leverage’ the rest of the money you need.

• The one thing WE REQUIRE is a budget. Your budget should show how you can do what you propose to do to be sure we will get your film at the end. Since IsumaTV only can contribute between 10% to 50% of your budget, you also have to show where you plan to get the rest of your money. Like all other distributors or broadcasters, IsumaTV only can pay its license fee or minimum guarantee when you have approval for ALL your budget from ALL your sources.

QUESTIONS? Email to info@isuma.tv.

 

Section 3.2.TV.5 of the Aboriginal Program guidelines defines a Canadian Broadcaster:

"A Canadian broadcaster described in (b) above is a broadcaster licensed by the CRTC, including private, public, educational, specialty, pay-per-view broadcasters, and CRTC-licensed VOD services. In this Program only, as a pilot initiative, the CMF may consider a digital distributor to be a Canadian broadcaster for the purposes of providing Eligible Licence Fees to an Applicant based in northern Canada (i.e. Nunavut, the Yukon Territory, or the Northwest Territories) if the CMF determines that the digital distributor: is a company that is Canadian-controlled (as determined for the purposes of sections 26 to 28 of the Investment Canada Act); operates in northern Canada; provides services and/or content that is targeted to Aboriginal communities in northern Canada; and licences Eligible Projects for distribution via digital platforms. In such a case, the CMF will interpret the remainder of section 3.2.TV.5 in a flexible manner so as to allow the digital distributor to provide Eligible Licence Fees. The CMF will determine whether a digital distributor qualifies for this pilot initiative on a case-by-case basis".