Here’s a summary of various news items to come Playback‘s way this week.

Eastlink gets Go-ing

Halifax-based mini-media conglomerate Eastlink has rolled out Eastlink To Go, a digital TV offering that facilitates four-screen program consumption. As part of the rollout, announced Tuesday, Eastlink is promoting how the service offers access to Hollywood Suite‘s offering of premium VOD movie channels, Super Channel programming as well as Eastlink TV Live and its own on-demand offerings.

In a statement, it said it was hoping to soon add to Eastlink To Go four-screen offerings from channels such as Treehouse, YTV, and OWN.

Grey Cup by the (industry) numbers

What’s a major milestone sports broadcasting event without some major milestone stats? In honour of Sunday’s broadcast of the 100th Grey Cup, here are some screen-industry specific stats, as released by TSN:

7.3 million: number of Canadians who viewed some of the TSN 100th Grey Cup tribute doc Engraved on a Nation;

4.6 million: average number of viewers who took in the 99th Grey Cup;

53: the number of Cineplex theatres in Canada that are planning to screen Sunday’s game live;

37: the number of Grey Cup games Brian Williams has hosted. He will host Sunday’s game with Dave Randorf;

14: the number of Grey Cup games Chris Cuthbert has called. Cuthbert will be joined by analyst Glen Suitor on Sunday (pictured from left, Suitor and Cuthbert);

5: the number of Grey Cup producers Jon Hynes and director Paul Hemming have worked together on the big day.

SOCAN Awards

Among the numerous prizes handed out during the 23rd annual SOCAN Awards gala held last Monday night in Toronto were several awards for songs and music that were affiliated with the screen-entertainment industry.

The categories, songs and winners were:

• Domestic non-animated TV series: Till Debt Do Us Part, by Olaf Pyttlik, Clinton Skibitzky, Frantic Films Releasing;
• Domestic made for TV film: The Stepson, David Burns, Premiere Bobine Musique;
• Domestic feature film: Moneyball, Mychael Danna, Soft Pedal, Sony/ATV Songs;
• International TV series: Hawaii Five-O, Keith Power, Sony/ATV Melody Canada;
• International film: Impact, Michael Plowman, Briar Patch Music Canada;
• Specialty TV programming: Plan Canada, Daniel Friedman, Eagle Com;
• News and sports TV programming: Canada AM, Robert Rettberg, Agincourt Music Publishing.

Shaw adds Junior

Shaw Media has added Disney Junior to its Shaw Direct offering. The programming for the kids commercial-free English- and French-language includes Canadian shows Stella and Sam from Radical Sheep Productions and Justin Time from Guru Studio. Both companies are based in Toronto.