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The New Media Development Program has so far participated in five projects. Blue Dog Pictures is developing The Jupiter Café, a science-based, edutainment CD-ROM for girls aged seven to ten. Veteran film and television producer Peter Rowe is working on Dick Whittington and his Cat: A Musical Adventure. WM Communications Inc. is developing an adventure game to teach conflict resolution called Save the School! Toronto multimedia house Mackerel is working on Maggie Muggins and the Fantastic Garden, and Animatics Multimedia received funding for The Superintendent. All of these are CD-ROM proposals. Some have received support from Canadian non-theatrical distributors who are now branching out into educational CD-ROMs. The OFDC will not participate in projects involving the re-purposing of existing film or video material.
Meanwhile at Telefilm Canada, Telefilm's new boss, Francois Macerola has gone on record as stating, "The Ontario Film Development Corp. has a multimedia production fund. Telefilm should, too." However, no new multimedia funding initiatives have been announced.
Both of these positions are encouraging, but the financial reality at both agencies is that there is not enough money to properly finance the productions aimed at traditional broadcasters, let alone all the new specialty channels, so it is unlikely that they will become a great source of financing for InfoBahn projects.
There are sources of financing within the multimedia/network community. Centre for Information Technology Innovation (CITI) is located in Laval, Québec. Its mandate is to promote the "dynamic application of information technology in the workplace, in business and in social and cultural organizations." Its Networked Cultural Information Systems (NCIS) program combines an interest in broadband fibre networks with an interest in the arts and culture. One specific research question that they are exploring is, "How can traditional producers of linear content like TV programs or films adapt their skills towards the potential of interactive media?" The NCIS program is headed by Michael Century, founder of the Banff Centre for the Arts's Media Arts program. Century is regarded as one of the gurus of broadband multimedia, and his name and CITI are associated with a number of leading edge projects including; PRIM's Mercure, Ryerson's nViews, Glen Salzman's Great Whale CD- ROM, the Virtual Film Festival, and Intercom Ontario.
Industry Canada's Communications Research Centre in Ottawa is mainly interested in technology and software. BADLAB, which was discussed elsewhere in this Report, is involved in supporting research into InfoBahn technologies and new media applications in telemedicine and distance education. They also run the Technology Incubator, supplying small and medium-sized companies with access to office and research services in their Ottawa facility.
In 1993, Ontario's Ministry of Economic Development committed $100 million to the Ontario Network Infrastructure Program (ONIP). The mandate was to "lever investment in Ontario's telecommunications and information infrastructure ... which includes a vast array of services and information in multiple media - data, text, voice, and video - delivered through high-capacity, interoperable networks." This is a program designed to encourage the physical deployment of broadband networks and is aimed at groups which include information providers, network service providers, manufacturers, local governments, and agencies. To date ONIP has granted $15 million to education-related networks including EDnet ($1.4 million), the Educational Network of Ontario ($5 million), and ONet ($5 million). ONIP also funds public networks like the National Capital FreeNet ($140,000) and the Toronto Free-Net ($485,000). They are financially involved in OCRInet ($2.5 million) and the Intercom Ontario project ($60,000). All of these projects are physical networks involving public organizations, and ONIP is quite specific about not funding "software of hardware not integral to the network", i.e. content.
PRIVATE SOURCES
Again and again while researching this report I was struck by the commercial nature of everything that I saw running in multimedia, interactive demonstrations. At the multimedia production house ICE (Integrated Communications and Entertainment) in Toronto's east end, Michael Keefe emphasized that multimedia network production and delivery is so expensive that the consumer use "will not be able to cover the cost of production." Keefe predicted that even VOD will be advertiser supported. At the glass-towered offices of MediaLinx Interactive, Stentor's product acquisition and development arm, Philip Smith, during a demonstration of their Mississauga VOD trial, speculated that advertisers might sponsor certain movies that the consumer could see for free, after viewing a short commercial or product informational. Just off Toronto's Queen Street West, at Sierra Communications, designer Jason Maher explained that their multimedia kiosk for Cineplex Odeon Theatres was not sponsored by Cineplex at all. The sponsor was Dentyne. And at Vidéotron in Montréal, every piece of interactive television that I saw involved heavy marketing and product identification. Even the Internet/WWW is a commercial gold mine. HotWired, the Web site run by Wired has commercial sponsorship for most of its sections. Pages are sponsored by Volvo and Stoli Vodka. The advertisers are canny as well. Click on the Stoli Vodka advert and you're linked to Stoli's own Web site, where you can read product information, or play a game. This WWW advertising is not cheap. Clients are paying $15,000 per month for a space on HotWired, which currently has a subscriber base of over 160,000. A link on the What's New page of NCSA, the Mosaic publishers, is worth $7,500 per week.
So the message is loud and clear. Advertising will drive the InfoBahn, just as it drives broadcast television. The InfoBahn will more than likely also be an AdBahn with product billboards in every direction. The giant video server/ VOD providers will be licensing product for sure, but it's not likely that they'll be helping to finance product in the foreseeable future. VOD revenues are going to be based on the number of "hits" or viewings that a specific film receives. Just like the video stores the number of "hits" will continue to be based on success in theatrical release. Of course VOD may turn out to be a bust. Recently, TCI chairman John Malone told Business Week that VOD, while a probable "revenue generator" has been blown out of proportion "to the point of being silly." This from the man whose company owns 20% of Turner Broadcasting's 2,800 title film library.