Montreal: Organizers of the Just For Laughs Festival are thinking this year’s edition may have been the best ever. Attendance topped 1.4 million, including 306,000 for 600 scheduled shows. The festival had a budget of $23 million, up $4 million from last year, with an estimated surplus of $80,000, says Bruce Hills, jfl’s coo.

Hills anticipates the 132 hours of live and pretaped broadcast programs taped during the festival will ultimately reach an audience of 500 million in 32 countries, and on 22 airplanes.

cbc’s Just For Laughs series has been re-jigged from 13 half-hours to six one-hours. ‘This enables us to do something that’s a little truer to what’s on stage,’ says Hills. The change was made possible when cbc programming brass, including George Anthony, offered jfl a better time slot, later on Friday evenings, starting Oct. 6. Comic/actor Harland Williams will host.

Highlight broadcast production and coproduction from Distribution Rozon this year includes 10 hours of Improv for The Comedy Network, a one-hour special for Paramount Comedy Channel in the u.k., 10 hours of Juste pour rire for tva and TV5, Mondial and National d’Impro shows for Tele-Quebec and TV5, and many hours of stand-up and non-verbal variety for first-time jfl attendee, Malaysian broadcaster TV3.

Rozon also produced a Juste pour rire gala series for ppv service Indigo and live-to-tape French-track gala specials commissioned by Bell ExpressVu and Internet-Sympatico. Rozon will present 13 new shows at mipcom, Oct. 2-6.

‘The Comedy Network has been a great partner,’ says Hills. ‘We had Comedy Central looking at the Improv series. Now the next move is to target Australia, the u.k. and the u.s., and we hope to have at least two of them attached for next year’s tournament.’

jfl’s new cinema showcase Comedia named Lasse Spang Olsen’s In China They Eat Dogs as best of the festival. Principal sponsors for the festival’s 18th edition were Loto-Quebec and Labatt Bleue. *