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MONTREAL Canuck TV producers thought it couldn't get any worse.
They were wrong.
At the recent Canadian Film and Television Production Assn. conference in Ottawa, the key annual powwow for the Canuck production biz, the talk of the town was the financial crisis in Canadian TV. And that was before the surprise cut to the Canadian Television Fund, a move that has the entire industry in a state of shock.
In the federal budget unveiled Feb. 18, finance minister John Manley announced that the government was cutting its annual contribution to the Canadian Television Fund from C$100 million ($67 million) to $50 million.
The fund is the key motor for the production biz in the Great White North. With contributions from the government, along with the cable and satellite companies, the fund pumps over $134 million into the industry every year, helping finance...