MuchFACT was a Canadian fund that provided grants to Canadian recording artists to help them produce
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...
s. FACT stands for Foundation To Assist Canadian Talent. MuchFACT was funded entirely by television cable channel
Much
Much may refer to:
*Much (TV channel), a cable network in Canada and its domestic and international spin-offs
*Much TV, a satellite cable channel in Taiwan
* ''Much'' (album), a 2001 album by Ten Shekel Shirt
* Much the Miller's Son, one of Robin ...
(formerly MuchMusic) who committed a percentage of their gross annual revenues to the fund. It was previously funded by
M3 (formerly MuchMore) but stopped after the channel was relaunched as
Gusto.
History
VideoFACT (as it was originally known) was created in 1984 with the launch of MuchMusic as a condition of its licence applied by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
(CRTC). Two years later with the launch of
MusiquePlus
Elle Fictions (stylized ELLE Fictions) is a Canadian French language specialty channel owned by Remstar Media Group. The channel broadcasts general entertainment programming targeting young adult women.
It was first established in 1986 as the mus ...
, it also became a sponsor, as did MuchMoreMusic when it launched in 1998.
Along with the launch of MuchMoreMusic in 1998, a new fund in conjunction with VideoFACT was created called PromoFACT, to help assist in the creation of Electronic Press Kits (EPK) and website productions for Canadian artists, independent record labels and artist management companies. PromoFACT is funded exclusively by MuchMoreMusic.
Many of Canada's most influential recording artists received VideoFACT funding for their early recordings, including
Sam Roberts,
K-os
Kevin Brereton (born February 20, 1972), better known by his stage name k-os (; "chaos"), is a Canadian alternative rapper, singer, songwriter and producer. His given name may also be cited as Kheaven, a spelling he later adopted.
The alias " ...
,
Céline Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion ( ; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals, Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist, and the best-selling French-language artist of all time. Her ...
,
k.d. lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Lang has won Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances. Hits include the son ...
,
Matthew Good
Matthew Frederick Robert Good (born June 29, 1971) is a Canadian musician. He was the lead singer and songwriter for the Matthew Good Band, one of the most successful alternative rock bands in Canada during the 1990s and early 2000s. Since the ...
,
The Pursuit of Happiness,
Bran Van 3000
Bran Van 3000 (also known as BV3) is a Canadian alternative rock and hip hop collective from Montreal, Quebec. Founded by James Di Salvio and E.P. Bergen, they collaborated on a number of songs with Stéphane Moraille, Sara Johnston, Steve "Liqu ...
,
Lara Fabian
Lara Sophie Katy Crokaert (born January 9, 1970), better known as Lara Fabian, is a Belgian-Canadian pop singer and songwriter. She has sold over 20 million records worldwide as of 2021Broadway World (2017)"Lara Fabian annule finalement sa tourn ...
,
Blue Rodeo
Blue Rodeo is a Canadian country rock band formed in 1984 in Toronto, Ontario. They have released 16 full-length studio albums, four live recordings, one greatest hits album, and two video/DVDs, along with multiple solo albums, side projects, a ...
,
Rascalz
Rascalz are a Canadian hip-hop group from Vancouver, British Columbia. The group played a crucial role in the artistic and commercial development of Canadian hip hop as well as specifically for the Westcoast scene in Vancouver popularizing the ...
,
Sloan
Sloan may refer to:
*Sloan (surname)
*MIT Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
*Sloan (band), a Canadian rock band
* Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a major astronomical survey
**Sloan Great Wall, a gala ...
,
Jean Leloup
Jean Leclerc (born May 14, 1961) is a Québécois singer-songwriter and author from Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada. He is popularly known as Jean Leloup (which he likes to translate to John the Wolf), a stage name he kept using until 2006, when he ...
,
Great Big Sea
Great Big Sea was a Canadian folk rock band from Newfoundland and Labrador, best known for performing energetic rock interpretations of traditional Newfoundland folk songs including sea shanties, which draw from the island's 500-year Irish, Scot ...
,
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan OC OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is '' Surfacing'', for which she won two Grammy Awards (ou ...
,
Death From Above 1979
Death from Above 1979 (also known as Death from Above) is a Canadian rock duo consisting of bassist Jesse F. Keeler and drummer and vocalist Sebastien Grainger from Toronto, Ontario, formed in 2001. The band released their debut album, ''You're a ...
,
Carly Rae Jepsen
Carly Rae Jepsen (born November 21, 1985) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. After studying musical theatre for most of her school life and while in university, Jepsen garnered mainstream attention after placing third on the fifth season of ...
,
Dubmatique
Dubmatique is a French Canadian hip hop group formed in the 1990s in Montreal, Quebec. Groupmates Dj Choice, OTMC, and Jérôme-Philippe are the first French-language hip-hop group from Canada to have a number one hit single on the francophone p ...
,
Aspektz
Aspektz is a Canadians, Canadian hip hop music, hip-hop recording artist and Record producer, producer born at North York General hospital in Toronto, in 1989. He is the founder of the True Thorobredz record label, a Canadian entrepreneur and an ...
and
Ashley MacIsaac
Ashley Dwayne MacIsaac (born February 24, 1975) is a Canadian fiddler, singer and songwriter from Cape Breton Island. He has received three Juno Awards, winning for Best New Solo Artist and Best Roots & Traditional Album – Solo at the Juno ...
among others.
The approach of monetary distribution used by VideoFACT and non-associated Canadian record funding organization (
FACTOR
Factor, a Latin word meaning "who/which acts", may refer to:
Commerce
* Factor (agent), a person who acts for, notably a mercantile and colonial agent
* Factor (Scotland), a person or firm managing a Scottish estate
* Factors of production, ...
) is not without critics. In 2008, the federally commissioned Wicks Report, instigated by then Prime Minister
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ...
, investigated VideoFACT and its granting apparatus. Chaired by the now defunct Burlington based melodic aggressive punk band The Tirekickers, the Wicks Report identified systemic bias against several specific musical genres, including hip-hop, trip-hop, and melodic aggressive punk rock. The Wicks Report's 28 recommendations have yet to be implemented by the federal government.
In 2009, the organizations came under public scrutiny when a letter written by Unfamiliar Records founder Greg Ipp was republished on the internet - in turn promoting the idea that bigger image-based bands shouldn’t be getting such a huge amount of those finite funds as it leaves relatively little, if any, funding for the smaller up-and-coming bands.
MuchFACT's executive director publicly disagreed with Ipp however, and went on record to clarify that the foundation's mandate was to support both new and existing talent.
In 2009, MusiquePlus discontinued its funding of VideoFACT, instead to focus funding on a similar French-language fund, MaxFACT. In September 2009, VideoFACT was later renamed MuchFACT.
In May 2017, the CRTC dropped the requirement for
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. (French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies.
Establishment (2011–13)
On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...
to continue funding the program. MuchFACT was discontinued on September 26, 2017.
References
External links
MuchFACTMuchFACT on MuchMusic.com"Just the FACTS" - kapiTal magazine, December 2006
See also
*
BravoFACT
BravoFACT (Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent) was a Canadian fund that ran continuously from 1995 to 2017. It was established to fund the creation of Canadian arts-based short films and videos. BravoFACT funded shorts from various subject matter ...
{{CTVglobemedia
1984 establishments in Canada
2017 disestablishments in Canada
Foundations based in Canada
Canadian music mass media
Much (TV channel)
Bell Media