– Salter Street expansion

Sparking increased speculation that a public share offering from Salter Street Films is imminent, Salter Street International has announced an expansion of its international distribution operation and named Telefilm Canada veteran Bill Niven as vp of operations.

Two internal promotions have also been announced; u.k.-based head of international sales Lynn James becomes vp international sales, and marketing manager Deborah Carver is now manager of business affairs.

Adding to what’s shaping up to be another record production year in Nova Scotia, Salter Street Films will be shooting a $5.5 million miniseries in Halifax over the next five weeks, followed by a week in Toronto.

Major Crime, the story of a police team attempting to bring down a dangerous child molester, is a two-parter written by Toronto’s Steve Lucas (The Champagne Safari, Diplomatic Immunity), directed by Brad Turner (The Peacekeepers, The Outer Limits) and will star Michael Moriarty, the Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner who starred in Law and Order and Courage Under Fire. Moriarty now resides in Halifax. Traders’ fans will see David Cubitt as the child molester.

Turner is directing the six-week Halifax and one-week Toronto shoot. Norman Denver is producing.

The series will air in two, two-hour segments on cbc during the ’97/98 season.

-NHK gets into Jungle

Japanese public broadcaster nhk, the Latin American United Family Canada, and wtn have licensed The Concrete Jungle, a 65-episode, half-hour gardening how-to series from Vancouver’s Romney Grant. Hosted by cbc radio vet Paul Grant, the series on how green thumbs can manifest themselves in the city is repped worldwide by California’s Planet Pictures.

Planet Pictures also reps Jeff Groberman’s computer series Dotto’s Data Cafe, currently airing on tvontario. The series, hosted by Steve Dotto, is an informal look at computer technology and is set in a trendy coffee house. Both Dotto and The Concrete Jungle will be on Planet Pictures’ slate for mip-tv.

In other specialty service sales, Toronto’s Summerhill Entertainment has signed with N1, an American broadcast and cable satellite network, for the u.s. coast-to-coast simulcast distribution of Live On Life with John Oakley, telecast by Life Network.

The one-hour live talk-tv program, in it’s first-season run on Life Network at 11 p.m. et, will be simultaneously broadcast via a multi-satellite feed to N1, with a reach of 65 million American households.

-CanWest’s Network Ten share down under

Tougher foreign investment rules may force CanWest to sell off its share of Australian broadcaster Network Ten. Australian newspapers are reporting an agreement in principle between the country’s prime minister and treasurer to crack down on foreign ownership of media.

The result could be pressure on CanWest to cut its ownership of Network Ten from 76% to 15% when the Australian Broadcasting Authority delivers its report on whether the ownership structure meets its Broadcasting Services Act.

CanWest chair Izzy Asper is calling the news report ‘speculation,’ and ‘possibly mischief,’ saying that even if the aba rules against CanWest, its original 57% stake in Network Ten may be grandfathered.

Closer to home, with protection mechanisms in place keeping Eaton’s credit card arm in the family, speculation is running that Baton Broadcasting could be an asset in play, particularly after share prices rose sharply mid-month. Baton maintains it is unaffected by the retailer’s financial conundrum and attributes the share hike to the market’s delayed response to its ctv control deal.

-Margolin wins DGA award

Vancouver’s Stuart Margolin picked up the Directors Guild of America’s Children’s Program Award for his first feature, Salt Water Moose, a family adventure from Norstar starring Timothy Dalton and Lolita Davidovich. Michael Kennedy was also a nominee in the same category for Robin of Locksley.

-Home stretch on TQS

Printing and publishing giant Quebecor has confirmed an interest in purchasing Television Quatre Saisons in a bid rumored to include Productions Ostar, broadcaster Jean-Luc Mongrain’s company, and the financial backing of Fonds de solidarite du Quebec, labor central ftq’s billion-dollar pension fund.

One company not in the running is Coscient Group, which issued a press release last week stating it will stay the course with its core production/distribution activity.

Speculation on other tqs bidders include Reseaux Premier Choix, Radiomutuel and Cogeco, all of Montreal, and CanWest.

Offers have to be filed with the trustee by April 9. The winning bid will be made public no later than April 20, with April 29 set as the crtc filing date.

-’97 Que. gov’t estimates

Quebec government spending estimates for 1997/98 were tabled this month in the National Assembly indicating a small reduction in the culture and communications budget to $426.3 million from $444.5 million this year.

The department expects full-time staff to be cut from 1,106 to 1,100.

Educational network Tele-Quebec’s annual report was also tabled. It’s reporting a $30.5 million deficit for the year ending March 31. The deficit includes $24.6 million in ‘exceptional reorganization costs’ and $5.9 million from current operations.

The massive reorganization created 250 layoffs from among 580 employees and resulted in a new mandate and name change from Radio-Quebec to Tele-Quebec.

-Headline Sports staffs up

Preparing for a May launch, Headline Sports, the 24-hour, up-to-the-minute sports highlights and information tv network, has secured its on-air reporting staff, which include former The Fan 590/Telemedia Radio sportscasters Elliotte Friedman and Greg Sansone; Brian Duff, previously at Edmonton radio station 790 CFCW; Damian Goddard, from CFTR 680 News in Toronto; and Peter Ruttgaizer, former sports anchor at Toronto’s cfto-tv.

Headline Sports’ current affairs program, The Front Page, will be hosted by veteran tsn producer and reporter Jorey Middlestadt. The two-hour program will run 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.

-UBI deploys

The ubi multimedia consortium reports the deployment of nearly 10,000 set-top boxes, printers and remote control units in homes in Chicoutimi and Jonquiere, Que. By late spring the consortium says some 30,000 homes will be equipped. The free-to-the-user ubi system uses the tv set allowing subscribers to access multimedia, Internet and transactional services.

ubi ceo Sylvie Lalande says content from service suppliers can be transported from one technology platform to another, in either direction. ubi – an acronym for Universal, Bidirectional and Interactive – is financed from upstream revenues, advertisers who pay to promote products and services.

ubi consortium finding members are the National Bank of Canada, Loto-Quebec, Hydro-Quebec, Groupe Videotron, Canada Post and The Hearst Corp.

-Que. online: latest ins & outs

Specialty and pay-tv operator Premier Choix has dropped its online multimedia Infonie project, stating the decision is based on ‘the high level of risk involved in such an investment.’

The company had announced plans to invest $30 million with a French partner in time for a fall ’97 launch.

-Appointments

At Life Network, Janice Platt moves from vp to senior vp programming, with production executive Barbara Williams taking up Platt’s previous position. A new production executive for Real Life with Erica Ehm has also been named – former cbc network news executive producer Karen Gelbart.

– Some internal shuffling is underway at CTV News with Canada am exec producer Fiona Conway appointed managing editor, W5 and specials. Canada am producer Tom Haberstroh is taking up the managing editor post at the program.

– Elisabeth Ostiguy, formerly assistant vp, multimedia policy at Bell Canada, has been appointed vp, radio of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, effective March 24.

– Mercedes Watson, formerly of Showcase Television, is taking on the duties of assistant director of ACTRA Performers Rights Society, the division responsible for royalties and residual payments. Watson is replacing Virginia Ryshpan, who is retiring after 30 years. The appointment is effective immediately.

– Finally, Global publicity whiz kid Sandra Puglielli is newly located at MuchMusic, handling publicity as of April 1. Carla Lucchetta has moved from Much into the role of communications manager for Bravo!.