COGECO Fund turns 20!

NEWS For immediate release

Montréal, June 10, 2012 – What do the hit shows Les rescapés, 19-2, Toute la vérité, Murdoch Mysteries and Flashpoint have in common? All these small-screen successes of recent years received financing from the COGECO Fund, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this July.

The COGECO Program Development Fund (“COGECO Fund”), a private, non-profit organization, was created in 1991 and began operations in July 1992. The Fund provides its financing through two distinct programs: a Development program, and a Production program.

Mandate

The COGECO Fund is mandated to encourage development and production of new television drama programming written by Canadians and for production by independent Canadian producers, in English or French, and preferably in both languages.. The COGECO Fund is headed by a six-member board of directors. By contractual agreement, its programs are managed through the Montréal and Toronto offices and administrative services of the Independent Production Fund.

How does the Fund raise the money to support projects submitted to it?

Upon its creation, the COGECO Fund received a capital of $5 million from Cogeco Cable. The amounts paid by the Development program to Canadian producers to develop scripts come from interest earned on that capital. Since 1997, Cogeco Cable Inc. has also been paying annual contributions in excess of $2.3 million into the fund. The amounts are distributed to the independent producers as investments through the program in support of production of TV series, miniseries, movies-of-the-week (MOWs), pilots and feature films.

COGECO’s is the only private fund in Canada to offer support for the pre-development and development stages of projects, as well as corporate assistance. Advances are granted for pre-development and development of dramatic television programming including television series, MOWs, miniseries, animation and multiplatform content, plus theatrical feature film corporate development. “The COGECO Fund is proud to be at the heart of creation. For nearly 20 years, the Fund has played a part in the various stages of drama screenplay development by offering Canadian companies financial support that has evolved to keep pace with industry changes,” says Yves Mayrand, President, COGECO fund.

To date, the COGECO Fund has granted $33 million, all forms of assistance combined, to nearly 700 projects, including:

[icon_caret_right][/icon_caret_right] $27,320,794 invested in production of 165 projects, including 125 English-language and 40 French- language projects;

[icon_caret_right][/icon_caret_right] $3,671,163 advanced to Canadian producers for development of 472 series, miniseries and MOW screenplays, including 284 in English and 188 in French;
[icon_caret_right][/icon_caret_right] $243,477 granted for pre-development of 37 projects destined for TV (28 English-language and 9 French- language projects);
[icon_caret_right][/icon_caret_right] $1,816,500 advanced in corporate assistance for feature-film development to some fifty Canadian companies;
[icon_caret_right][/icon_caret_right] Partnerships in the Banff Media Festival and Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television for the Gemini and Gémeaux awards;
[icon_caret_right][/icon_caret_right] Support to Canadian private and public broadcasters TVA, Séries +, Vrak.tv, SRC, Super Écran, APTN, SCN, CBC, TMN, MC, CanWest, CTV, City TV, YTV, The N, Family Channel, SNC, Showcase, Global, W Network, APTN, MuchMusic, and Treehouse.

Ensuring that we evolve, adapt and continue to meet the needs of the industry, while always respecting the creative process and responding to audience tastes and expectations, represents a major challenge that we proudly meet year after year.

ABOUT COGECO

COGECO is a diversified telecommunications company. Through its Cogeco Cable subsidiary, COGECO provides its residential customers with Audio, Analogue and Digital Television, as well as HSI and Telephony services using its two-way broadband cable networks. Cogeco Cable also provides, to its commercial customers, through its subsidiary Cogeco Data Services, data networking, e-business applications, video conferencing, hosting services, Ethernet, private line, VoIP, HSI access, data storage, data security, co-location services, managed IT services, cloud services and other advanced communication solutions. Through its subsidiary Cogeco Diffusion, COGECO owns and operates 13 radio stations across most of Québec with complementary radio formats serving a wide range of audiences, as well as Cogeco News, its news agency. Cogeco Diffusion also operates Métromédia Plus, an advertising representation house specialized in the public transit sector that holds exclusive advertising rights in Québec, where it also represents its business partners active across other Canadian markets. COGECO’s subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CGO). Cogeco Cable’s subordinate voting shares are also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CCA).