Of the big three networks, CTV is hardest hit by the CTF LFP returns – failing to secure funding for The Eleventh Hour and seven of its planned MOWs for ’03/04. All but two of those come from Ontario production houses.

Producer Jon Slan and his Toronto-based Slanted Wheel Entertainment was to coproduce Friend of the Family with Bright Lights Productions of B.C., but the $4-million pic did not make the LFP cut. Likewise, Alliance Atlantis’s Playing House, Sarrazin Couture Entertainment’s copro of Lie With Me, Tapestry Pictures’ Prom Queen and the Shaftesbury Films copro North of Hope will have to look elsewhere for funding.

S&S Productions took a one-two punch when both its CBC series, An American in Canada and mainstay The Red Green Show, got passed over for their second and twelfth seasons, respectively. American has had budget troubles since the get-go, and it was only through LFP cash and equipment loans from CBC that the first six eps ever made it to air. Its future seems very uncertain.

While missing on the MOW front, Alliance Atlantis did get a $4.1-million LFP offer for season seven of Cold Squad. Toronto’s Epitome Pictures got $1.1 million for a third go-round of Degrassi: The Next Generation.

Both of the murder series from Barna-Alper also made the cut: season four of Blue Murder got a $3.5-million nod and season six of Da Vinci’s Inquest will get $4.1 million – tying Cold Squad for the single largest LFP payouts so far this year.

Conversely, Toronto’s Big Soul Productions got one of the smallest, $112,500 for the first six eps of Moccasin Flats, to air on APTN. Productions attached to specialty channels and strong regional broadcasters like CHUM or Craig Media fared better than expected in this round, and thus Radical Sheep Productions has a cool half million to burn on another 13 eps of Puppets Who Kill, on The Comedy Network, and Breakthrough Films and Television has some $800,000 for Paradise Falls’ second season on Showcase Television. The Toronto prodco also squeaked through the variety and performing arts category with roughly the same amount on all 126 eps of The Toronto Show for Craig’s toronto|one. The five-nights-a-week show is to be the tent-pole program of Craig’s new station when it launches this fall.