CRTC approves RAI

The CRTC has rethought one of its most controversial decisions of 2004, and has put RAI International on the list of eligible satellite services in Canada, following a request by Rogers Cable. The Italian-language general-interest channel will be available by June. The CRTC drew fire last year when it blocked RAI, but softened its stance in December by loosening the requirements for third-language services.

FRV buys La Fete

Entertainment holding company FRV Media has reached an agreement to buy Distribution la Fête’s 150-title catalogue, best known for family films and some 300 hours of mostly youth-aimed TV shows, including the Tales for All titles. The deal turns La Fete into a unit of FRV International and sees La Fête exec Xiao Juan Zhou cross over to FRV as a new VP of distribution.

FRV is the majority owner of prominent Montreal prodco Cité-Amérique (Dice, Shotgun Molly) and is headed by president and CEO Richard Laferriere. La Fête has sales of approximately $2.5 million per year, but ran into financing problems when a previous deal with Vivavision fell through.

MTV out of Canada

MTV Networks International is taking its name off MTV 2 and MTV Canada, the digital channels launched here by Craig Media in 2001. The channels, now owned by CHUM Limited, are to be rebranded by the end of June.

The MTV/Craig agreement allowed the U.S. giant to back out if Craig changed hands, which came to pass last year when it was bought by CHUM. CHUM had previously fought the arrival of both channels, complaining they competed against its music specialties. MTV says it plans to eventually re-enter Canada.

CHUM buys Monday Night Football

CHUM Television has picked up the rights to the NFL’s Monday Night Football and is set to air the long-running sports series this fall on its Citytv stations in Ontario and B.C. The deal covers 16 consecutive games of the 2005 season, to be offered in HD. Monday Night Football previously aired on Toronto1, which CHUM acquired when it bought rival Craig Media in 2004. T1 is now owned by TVA and Sun Media.

HD moving slowly

Only 14% of Canadians have HD-ready TV sets and, of those, more than half do not have the set-top box needed to get a high-definition picture, according to a new poll that says Canucks have been slow to adopt the new video technology. Forty-one percent of respondents cited lack of content as the main reason for not buying a set-top box, while 16% said they didn’t know they needed one. One in five Canucks plan to buy an HD set eventually, roughly half of whom plan to do so in the next year, according to the survey, conducted by Ipsos-Reid on behalf of The Movie Network. TMN introduced an HD service earlier this month.

nextMEDIA moves to June

The nextMEDIA fest has rescheduled its events to sidle up with the Banff World Television Festival, and will move into the Banff Centre and the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel for June 11-13. The switch is intended to allow patrons to capitalize on both events, say organizers. The Banff fest runs June 12-15. Both events are managed by Achilles Media.

CanWest sells library

CanWest Global Communications has entered an agreement to sell its film and TV library rights to distributor ContentFilm International for $35 million. The deal covers such titles as Zoe Busiek: Wild Card, Mutant X and Rat Race, all held by the former Fireworks Entertainment, which CWG put on the block this time last year. The transaction is expected to close June 15, subject to approval by ContentFilm shareholders. CanWest paid $40 million for Fireworks in 1998.