– Edmund A. Oliverio, president of EAO Music and of First Nation Conferences, has created Beaver Lands Productions. Beaver Lands, which is 50% aboriginal owned, plans to develop a sound, film and video industry community on 900 acres previously leased by the Tsuu T’ina Nation to the department of National Defense.

The new company eventually plans to make a soundstage and post sound studios part of the complex. A training program will be established to generate aboriginal employment.

– A number of major players in the telecommunications, computer and broadcasting industries have established a consortium to develop Canada-wide multimedia applications.

Centre of Expertise and Services in the Application of Multimedia will focus on hands-on applications and has a first-year budget of $1.1 million, according to cesam general manager Andre Maisonneuve. About a third of the funding comes from the group’s partners: Bell Quebec/Medialink Interactive, Groupe Quebecor, Softimage, an animation software company owned by Microsoft Corp., CAE Electronics, the cbc and Silicon Graphics.

The federal and Quebec governments are also contributing to the program with additional funding tied to revenues earned from a 3D computer training program set up for university students in aeronautics.

– DirecTv, a unit of Hughes Electronic Corp., successfully launched its DBS-3 satellite June 9, for service later this year. Once in use, DBS-3 will be used with DBS-1 and DBS-2 to beam down expanded channel capacity – 175 services – to the DirecTv subscriber base. DirecTv is 20% owner of Power DirecTv, one of the dth services in the middle of Canada’s satellite wars.

Closer to home, the order in Parliament on dth services filed by the Minister of Heritage Michel Dupuy at the end of April, winds up its 40 sitting days June 23. The order was filed to force the crtc to begin a licensing process for dth services, after the commission rejected an order to do so. The government is widely expected to order the licensing process to begin immediately.