– South Park on Comedy

CTV’s The Comedy Network has scored the cable tv rights to broadcast reruns of the irreverent animated sitcom South Park from Comedy Central. Comedy will broadcast the 13 existing episodes beginning Aug. 4 in primetime. CanWest Global will maintain rights to the upcoming season of first-run episodes of South Park.

In other ctv news, the yet-to-be-launched CTV Sports Net has filed an application with the crtc asking for approval to transfer Molson’s 20% voting interest in the service to cable giant Rogers Communications subsidiary Rogers Broadcasting.

Rogers currently owns 20% of CTV Sports Net, with ctv owning 40%, Molson 20% and LMC International, a non-Canadian shareholder, 20%. Upon completion of the proposed transaction, Rogers’ voting interest in CTV Sports Net would increase to 40%.

– Double Fox order for Telescene

Montreal’s Telescene Film Group has received two series orders from Fox Family Channel for fall ’98 as part of a five-year agreement.

According to Telescene president and ceo Robin Spry, Fox Family’s first-year order of the new sitcoms, Big Wolf on Campus and Misguided Angels, is 22 half-hours of each series. Fox Family also has options to increase the initial order by eight more episodes for a total of 52.

Both series aim for the 18- to 24-year-old demo and represent over $30-million worth of production for Telescene. Production on Big Wolf on Campus and Misguided Angels is skedded for Montreal this summer.

On the heels of this agreement is the renewal of Telescene’s syndicated teen/tween series Student Bodies, which will begin production on its second season shortly. The series airs in Canada on both Global and ytv and is syndicated in the u.s. by Twentieth Century Fox Television and distributed internationally by Sunbow Entertainment.

– Ont. prodco slates

Three Ontario prodcos, High Road Productions, Breakthrough Entertainment and Sleeping Giant Productions, have released their ’98 production slates in anticipation of the Banff Television Festival.

Sleeping Giant has $6-million worth of productions skedded for ’98, with 14 new series, documentaries and/or specials in production. Sleeping Giant founder Jim Hanley says his company’s rapid growth has led to the formation of three new divisions: spiritual, educational, and arts and culture.

High Road Productions is heading to Banff with its acclaimed doc Wrestling With Shadows, about wrestler Bret ‘Hit Man’ Hart, and is developing an action-thriller mow starring the Canadian athlete.

High Road has also signed Genie-winning screenwriter Gerry Wexler (Margaret’s Museum) to write the feature screenplay for Promise, based on the true-life account by Maria Halina Horn detailing a young girl’s struggle to survive the Nazi’s reign of terror. High Road has also optioned Wilde’s Last Stand by British author Philip Hoare, about Canadian Maude Allan’s libel suit against a British mp who accused her of complicity in the Cult of Wilde.

High Road will also produce four series this year.

Breakthrough has 85 hours of television on its ’98 production slate including the one-hour primetime Chanukah special Jenny and The Queen of Light for Global and Shadow Lake, an mow copro with Ottawa’s Sound Ventures for Chum Television. Returning Breakthrough series include 52 new half-hours of It Seems Like Yesterday for History Television and 110 new half-hours of What’s For Dinner for Life Network.

– Edge forms new wing

Saskatchewan’s The Edge Productions has formed Edge Entertainment, a new division focusing on the development, production, acquisition and distribution of film, television and home video products.

David Doerksen will be president of film and television in charge of new operations and Leanne Arnott vp of film and television. Janice King has been promoted to director of development, and Bill Braaten joins the company as director of marketing.

Edge Entertainment will house the company’s home media division, which is responsible for sales and distribution of home video products.

– Yorkton winners

Chile, Obstinate Memory was the big winner at the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, picking up awards for best of the festival, best historical doc, best direction (Patricio Guzman) and best editing (Helen Girard). The film was coproduced by Eric Michel of the National Film Board and Yves Jeanneau of France’s Les Films d’Ici.

Other winners include In Extremis Images’ Les Sept Branches De La Riviere Ota, which won for best drama over 30 minutes and for best art direction (Monique Dion). Producer was Bruno Jobin and Francis Leclerc directed

The Canadian Film Centre’s The Night of The Living, produced by Paul Barkin and directed by Andrew Currie, was voted best children’s production.

Best comdey went to Cullen Robertson/Soapbox Productions’ Double Exposure, produced and directed by Nick Orchard.

A Billions Films’ Harlan & Fiona, produced by Ian Handford and directed by Gary Yates, won for best drama under 30 minutes, and best experimental went to Fighting Fish Pictures’ Dance With Me, produced by Cherie MacNeill and directed by Cassandra Nicolaou.

– Going and coming

– Michel Lozier, director of operations at the CTCPF Licence Fee Program, has resigned to become VP marketing at Laser Media, a multimedia cd-rom company specializing in the health and fitness field.

In other ctcpf news, the fund’s board will reportedly go on a retreat at the end of May to begin discussions on how to redesign the lfp procedure to prevent scenarios like the one that took place this April.

– Wayne Sterloff, who headed ctv’s Western Canadian independent production initiative at the new vtv station in Vancouver, has decided not to renew his one-year contract. Instead, it is rumored, he will take a position with the bbc for which he’d work with emerging filmmakers.

Replacing Sterloff as ctv’s head of independent production for Western Canada is Louise Clark.

– Longtime Atlantis Communications staffer Jeremy Katz left his position as vp, production publicity at Atlantis Films in mid-May.

– Lions Gate Entertainment has named John Veitch has been named co-chair of LG Pictures. In his position he will work with Peter Strauss, newly named to head the u.s. operations.

– Barry L. Levy, former manager of Nelvana’s l.a. office, has been promoted to director of development.

– Keith Bradbury, instrumental in establishing bctv’s NewsHour as the standard-bearer newscast in b.c. 20 years ago, is taking early retirement at the end of the month. At the end of his 26 years with bctv, Bradbury, 58, was bctv’s news director for the past six years and was named a bctv vp in 1996.

– Less than a year into the position, Rogers Cablesystems president and ceo Jos Wintermans has been let go.

– Suzette Meyers has resigned as co-anchor at Global Television, Vancouver, to pursue a career in documentary film production. Global will launch a national search to replace Meyers.

– Insurance brokerage and consultant company Jones Brown and Associates has acquired Thompson, Thompson Entertainment Insurance Brokers and appointed Kirk Thompson as president of its entertainment and sports division.

– TSN has appointed Sheri Hargrave as its new Calgary reporter, starting June 1. She replaces David Amber, who has been reassigned to the Toronto operation.