*Crossroads TV launches

Crossroads Television System, a 24-hour Southern Ontario regional channel devoted to ‘family-oriented entertainment and multi-denominational’ programming, launched in Toronto on both Shaw and Rogers Cablesystems on Channel 9 Wednesday, Sept. 30.

On Rogers, the pay-per-view barker channel that occupied the channel moved to Channel 61. On Shaw, the real estate channel – a multiple listings service – moved to Channel 41.

Broadcasting to nearly six million viewers, cts’ weekday family programming includes Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. News and public affairs shows are scheduled weeknights at 9:30 p.m. and Michael Coren Live, a new one-hour, live talk and phone-in show, will air weeknights at 10:30 p.m.

‘As we progress, there’s no question we will revise, update and acquire new properties that reflect our standards,’ says Dick Gray, cts president. ‘We’re very interested in long-term investment opportunities in new Canadian programming – up to $20 million over the next six years – in addition to what we will dedicate to international programming acquisitions.’

*Atlantis Broadcasting renews, debuts

Toronto’s Sleeping Giant Productions, TransAtlantic Films of the u.k. and New Zealand’s tvnz will begin production on season two of Horse Tales in the new year.

Budgeted at $1.75 million for the series, the 13 half-hour Canada/ u.k./New Zealand coproduction about people and their horses goes into production in January 1999, with an expected June delivery date. The series airs in Canada on Atlantis Broadcasting’s Life Network and is scheduled for the 1999/2000 season.

Shooting will take place in Canada, Spain, Australia and elsewhere.

Unapix International has worldwide rights, and Sleeping Giant will distribute domestically.

In other new program news coming from Atlantis Broadcasting, Ottawa-based Mountain Roads Productions is creating a 13 half-hour magazine show about loft apartments for Home and Garden Television in Canada and the u.s.

Producer/director/dop Tim Alp and associate producer Kathy Doherty pitched the idea – courtesy of Doherty’s mother – to the Ottawa Hull Film and Television Association in February.

‘I had just bought a loft in Ottawa and it was an old school, so there were bathrooms right in the middle of my space,’ says Doherty. ‘I had no clue what to do with such a big square and my mom suggested, `Why don’t you make a tv show about it and then at least you can get paid for your research?’ ‘

After getting the green light from the ohfta and hgtv, a 15-minute pilot was shot in Ottawa. The pilot has since been reshot and reworked and will air as one of the regular episodes.

With a budget of about $35,000 per episode, the Mountain Road production team will shoot lofts for 10 days in Toronto and New York and spend three days in New Jersey, 12 in Chicago and a week in Montreal. They are also looking at locations in Quebec City.

Lofty Ideas will look at how a building goes from an industrial space to a living space. The programs will include a history of the building and its neighborhood. The host, interior designer Katherine Stone, will look at the space and how it is used and also the lifestyle of the loft’s occupant. The series will debut in January.

With a file from Dustin Dinoff.

*New golf show tees off on Sportsnet in ’99

The Canadian Tour golf tournament, Molstar Sports and Entertainment and CTV Sportsnet have announced a broadcasting deal, for an undisclosed amount, that will introduce a 22-week, half-hour magazine show showcasing the golf tourney.

Molstar will produce and market the yet-to-be-named program, which launches Tuesday, May 11, 1999. It will air for five months per year on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. and repeat twice on Thursday afternoons on Sportsnet, which launches Friday, Oct. 9.

The program will cover previews and highlights of tournament play, features, tournament facts and forecasts, profiles, analysis and tips with Canadian tour players. According to Molstar spokesperson Shannon Emily Davidson, the golf show should have a name and a host in three to four weeks.

In other Sportsnet news, the network’s 66-game coverage of the Canadian Hockey League will start Sunday, Oct. 11 with four regional games, Quebec at Rimouski (east only), Sault Ste. Marie at Guelph (Ontario only), Brandon at Lethbridge (West only) and Portland at Moose Jaw (Pacific only).

*Vision TV turns 10

Vision TV is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with a series of 10 public presentations across Canada. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Voices of Vision presentations begin in Vancouver on Oct. 10 with speaker Paul Gorman, executive director of the u.s. National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

Other speakers include disabled rights advocate Catherine Frazee (Oct. 15, Winnipeg), provincial judge The Hon. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (Nov. 13, Whitehorse), u.n. High Commissioner Mary Robinson (Nov. 23, Edmonton), children’s rights activist Craig Keilburger (Nov. 28, Edmonton), authors Antonine Maillet and John Ralston Saul (Dec. 2, Moncton) and The Hon. Madame Justice Louise Arbour (Dec. 10, Montreal).

Vision will tape the presentations and broadcast them consecutively starting March 1, 1999.

*CFMT video sold out

Talk about responding to your viewers. cfmt’s videotape of its May 31 Portuguese-language special EXPO 98: The Oceans, A Heritage for the Future recently sold out after being on the market for one and a half months.

In response to a flood of favorable viewer calls, the multicultural station produced 1,000 copies of the video in mid-August, half of which sold in the first two weeks.

Retailing at $10, the videos were available at each of the Nova Era Bakery locations across Toronto. The bakery has been a cfmt advertiser for about six years.

According cfmt spokesperson Peter Donato, ‘it was something [cfmt] could readily do,’ because they had all the programming rights (it was cfmt produced).

It’s up in the air whether they’ll make more videos. ‘They’re looking at this as a good way to reach the community in a way they haven’t done before,’ Donato says.