Ontario Music Fund - Update
The Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) has extended the deadline for the Music Company Development Stream of the Ontario Music Fund from December 9th to December 12th at 5pm, 2013. Though the deadline extension is short, the move will provide some much-needed extra time to companies currently struggling to meet the quickly-approaching deadline.
In addition, the OMDC has also posted an amendment to its funding guidelines for the Ontario Music Company Development Stream of the Ontario Music Fund.
From the Ontario Media Development Corporation:
"The amendment below applies to page 8 of the MCD guidelines under “Ineligible Expenses”.
Current program guidelines for MCD stream state that the OMF will fund a maximum of 50 per cent of eligible costs, excluding recoupable expenses. (Eligible costs include recording and production costs in the case of international artists recording in Ontario, with marketing and promotion costs added for Canadian artists.)
The MCD guidelines will be amended to require that any amount of OMF grant funds provided for recoupable recording and production costs be deducted by the recipient record label from the recording artist’s recoupable account.
This amendment will apply only to recording activity going forward. No OMF funds will be used to recoup recording and production costs from an artist “in deficit” for past activity.
Example:
A record label applies to the MCD stream for a total of $3 million in eligible costs for X number of signed artists:
Eligible recording & production costs $ 1.7 million
Eligible marketing and promotion activities 1.3 million
Total eligible costs $3.0 million
In this example, the OMF will provide a maximum grant of $1.5 million. Of this amount, $850,000 will be directed to total recording costs of $1.7M.The record label will be required to spend the full $1.7 million for recording, but remove the $850,000 grant portion from the artist’s advance, leaving the other half to be recouped from sales.
Record labels will be required to provide a copy of contracts with their artists.
Applicants should note that a final cost report and financing statement will be required for all activities supported by the OMF. Applicants receiving over $100,000 in funding from OMF will be required to conduct a full audit of expenses."
Finally: for those individuals or companies who were note able to attend the information sessions, the slide deck presentations are now available online as PDFs:
Music Industry Development
Music Company Development
Live Music
Music Futures
Note that these are only intended to supplement the official guidelines, not to replace them, and those who are planning on applying should still refer to the official guidelines.
For questions on these changes or anything else related to the Ontario Music Fund, please contact the OMDC at OMF@omdc.on.ca