Vancouver: Just how Vancouver’s Monarch Entertainment will emerge from its current chrysalis is unknown as the federal government enters into discussions about what will replace the Production Services Limited Partnership incentive for foreign producers working in Canada.

Monarch is one of three companies that used the tax-shelter program to finance u.s. productions in Canada with about an 8% rebate on eligible expenses.

President Stephen Cheikes was instrumental along with Grosvenor Park of Toronto in winning an extension to the program that was to expire without a replacement on July 31.

The original program, the eleventh-hour extension and the efforts to replace it with a new incentive for foreign producers, show how far Ottawa has come in realizing the importance of foreign production to Canadian jobs and tax revenues.

And while the new program will replace investors with government money, there will still be a need for companies like Monarch to process the program, Cheikes says. How the program will ultimately work and whether it will, indeed, be up and running by Nov. 1 will be on the agenda when the bureaucrats reconvene after their summer vacations.

Cheikes says he hopes the government, if it isn’t able to secure a program after Nov. 1, will extend the current incentive so that u.s. studios won’t be left in limbo. The government has, after all, promised a seamless transition.

So with that kind of pledge, Cheikes is proceeding, confident, he says, that his relationships with studios like Paramount (for series Viper, Sentinel and Three) and Universal (for projects like new feature Snow Falling on Cedars) will withstand the changeover.

One thing is for sure: Monarch, Grosvenor and, to a lesser extent, Alliance Equipcap will be swimming in less rarefied, more competitive waters.

*Up and at ’em

Baton may christen its first day of broadcasting in Vancouver with a live breakfast show, but chek-tv will have beaten upstart Vancouver Television by about three weeks in marking the historic milestone. Called the first live morning show for b.c., Wake Up debuted on the wic-owned station at 6 a.m. Sept. 2 as a one-hour local news program for the Vancouver Island and Greater Vancouver regions.

In collaboration with sister station bctv, chek will have microwave vans available to the show for live news stories fed from Victoria, Nanaimo, Comox Valley and Greater Vancouver. Hosts Jill Krop and Zack Spencer will review weather conditions, market information, ferry sailings and traffic reports.

With the launch of Wake Up, chek terminated its 11:30 p.m. news package. ‘All industry trends suggest that there’s a growing appetite for news and information in the morning and, at the same time, a decline in late-night news viewing,’ says producer Robert Palmer. ‘Consequently, we’re leading the way by responding to our viewers’ needs and filling a gap in provincial coverage.’

And it will come as no surprise that Palmer isn’t too worried about the launch of Baton’s new two-hour, live morning show at vtv. Ratings time will tell the tale.

*Quiet on the set

The Union of B.C. Performers finally signed a collective agreement with nbc series Sleepwalkers and has a contract subject to drafting with Westbay’s feature Wrongfully Accused. The two shows had been the subjects of controversy earlier this month when they successfully sought a ruling from b.c.’s Labour Relations Board to stop the union from telling members not to work for shows without a collective agreement.

Alex Taylor, ubcp’s director of collective bargaining, says the union is happy with the new contracts. The contentious ‘use fees’ issue (prepayment of residuals) has been maintained at 105% of performers’ net fees for tv shows and 130% of net fees for features.

Taylor says shows such as The X-Files, Millennium, Sentinel and Viper have expired contracts and are entering negotiations. The signing of the Sleepwalkers contract will ease the new talks, he adds.

The dispute with Police Academy, meanwhile, is still in arbitration. ubcp has sought a judicial review of mediator Brian Foley’s decision to deny the union the right to strike the set of the syndicated Warner Bros. show.

*Twice would be nice

The brain trust behind Vancouver’s Boneyard Productions has been taking some down time after schlepping Kissed around the globe. But now director Lynne Stopkewich is back writing her next feature – another Barbara Gowdy adaptation but one that is less taboo-smashing than the necrophilia essay that put the director on the map. (Korea has recently banned Kissed.)

Stopkewich is writing the script for Falling Angels, Gowdy’s second novel about three sisters in a dysfunctional family, which could go before the cameras by next summer. Boneyard’s Dean English is coproducing the feature with Robin Cass, who produced Lilies for Toronto’s Triptych Media.

In other local production news, Patti Henderson has wrapped the British Columbia Film-funded short film Up the Wall, a comedy about a noisy neighbor. Post-production is being ‘sponsored’ by Comet Post Production and Matrix.

Vancouver producers are touring southeast Asia to research a new 26-episode food and travel series called Entree to Asia. Produced by Randolph Eustace-Walden, directed by Leo Foucault and hosted by chef Tomas Robson, the series will debut in spring ’98. It is privately sponsored by Asian Home Gourmet, a multinational food product company.

Short film auteur Ken Hegan gets a paid gig with Baton when he produces Aardvark, a mockumentary about two guys trying to get a play into the Fringe Festival. The show will air on Vancouver Television and will wrap production Sept. 14.

*No time for crime

According to a Fraser Institute study, Vancouver television news rooms are following the Canadian trend of leading with politics and business stories, whereas their u.s. counterparts lead with crime.

The report studied newscasts on July 25 and found that stories about politics and business accounted for 50% of lead stories on the supper-hour shows. In the u.s., business and politics accounted for only 10% of lead stories. As Global Vancouver’s news director George Froehlich is quoted as saying: ‘[In the u.s.,] if it bleeds, it leads.’

*Northern hospitality

Among the various u.s. projects on the go here is Limp, a low-budget independent action-comedy feature about an impotent musician. Coproducer Duane Lavold of l.a.-based Swell Entertainment is Canadian and shooting goes through September.

Trilogy Entertainment – the u.s. company with Canadian principals and Canadian subsidiaries that backs series Outer Limits and Poltergeist – is behind Creature, a tv miniseries that shoots here until Oct. 8 (after completing a stint in St. Lucia). Craig T. Nelson and Kim Cattrall headline the cast in another Peter Benchley shark story.