CBC loses $10M

Dollars will be stretched a little further at CBC for the remainder of fiscal ’03/04, following news that the pubcaster will get a year-end top-up of just $50 million, not $60 million as pledged by Heritage Minister Sheila Copps. The Treasury Board has redirected the $10 million to a ‘reallocation’ project fronted by Finance Minister John Manley.

Network president Robert Rabinovitch expressed frustration at the loss, noting that it ‘aggravates’ an already strained budget. Programming and jobs could be affected, he added.

-www.cbc.ca

Numbers up at AAB

Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting is trumpeting high ratings at its specialty channels, the top five of which are up 19% among adults 25-54 in 2002/03, significantly outpacing the previous year’s industry average of 11%. sHGTV was up 31% in that demo in ’02/03, followed by Showcase (24%), History Television (21%), Food Network Canada (11%) and Life Network (9%). AAB’s digichannels also rose, gaining 53% with viewers 2+, over an industry average of just 17%.

CEO Phyllis Yaffe says the numbers demonstrate a ‘fundamental shift’ of viewers away from conventional channels.

-www.allianceatlantis.com

New film lab opens at Northwest Imaging

Vancouver post house Northwest Imaging & FX is opening a film lab this month, housed in the shop’s new second building. The new lab can process 16mm and 35mm negative film as well as the more rare reversal 8mm, 16mm and 35mm formats.

The added facility is located on Gilmore Way in Burnaby, and will have the lab on the ground floor and the F/X, editing and transfer departments on the third. NWFX’s Columbia Street location will continue to house post audio and editorial facilities.

The shop says the new building was opened to benefit from the film-based productions shooting in B.C.’s nearby studios.

-www.nwfx.com

Lecture series kicks off

Toronto’s Cinematheque Ontario will kick off its new lecture series on Oct. 16, as film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum presents Anthony Mann’s 1952 western classic The Naked Spur. The series will feature an array of filmmakers, critics, preservationists and others speaking about some of the classics.

Subsequent lectures will cover the work of feminist filmmaker Germaine Dulac and Charles Laughton’s 1955 classic The Night of the Hunter.

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/cinematheque