Despite Bell Globemedia’s proposed buyout of CHUM, it’s business as usual for the latter’s new broadband service MuchAXS.

So says David Kines, VP music and youth services for CHUM Television, who insists it’s too early to speculate how the merger with BGM, parent of CTV and MTV Canada, will affect the online spin-off of MuchMusic.

MuchAXS launched on June 28, just two weeks ahead of the buyout announcement, and follows the March debut of MTV Overdrive.

The rival broadband services and siblings-to-be already have something of a family resemblance. MuchAXS (muchmusic.com/axs) also features full-screen video clips, and in some cases, entire shows, of in-house titles including Much News and The New Music, plus music videos, interviews and concert footage.

Kines takes pains to describe the service as an evolution of the existing MuchMusic brand and website, and not as a response to Overdrive. CHUM says AXS has been in development since last summer.

‘We’re redesigning the [MuchMusic.com] website all the time and adding new features,’ such as MuchAXS, says Kines.

He points to the vast CHUM/Much archive, dating back to the 1960s, as a key difference. ‘We’ve got a ton of Canadian content and artists in our archives, and it’s coming from a 25-year or more history of covering all music, not just accessing an international U.S. library,’ he says. New material is being added daily.

CTV’s VP of digital media Kris Faibish welcomes the Much launch. ‘Bring it on,’ she says. ‘It validates what we’re already doing, and they’re acknowledging that there is a market for it.’

However, she also insists the two services are ‘compatible,’ with AXS being the ‘Canadian brand’ and Overdrive relying on what she says is a much larger library of music videos in addition to its full-length shows. Faibish declined to speculate on which service’s technology might come out on top should there be any consolidation if the buyout is approved by the CRTC and the Competition Bureau.

‘These are very complementary services, and they’re both independent businesses and will continue to be independent.’

FilmCAN into distributing

Nonprofit online magazine FilmCAN says its new feature film distribution service is now open for business.

FilmCAN Distribution has partnered with online indie music distributor Zunior.com to make indie Canadian films available for download. In the manner of most indie ventures, it’s starting small and humble, currently offering just four films for download at www.filmcan.org, including Ron Mann’s Grass and Clive Holden’s Trains of Winnipeg.

FilmCAN publisher Ryan Noth says the library will focus on thematic programming – for example, ‘English-language realist cinema of the ’70s.’

‘Our goal is to double our films each [quarterly] issue,’ he says. ‘We’re not going to take just any film. Our mandate is to do a boutique programming kind of thing.’

The distributor is also offering a 70% share of revenue to producers, though it offers no money up front. The deals are nonexclusive.

Noth concedes that getting producers to sign on may not be easy because of how broadcast deals typically work.

‘The trick is we have to make filmmakers more aware of this [service] at the stage where they’re considering DVD release… Once they’re locked up in a DVD release – and to some degree television as well – those Internet rights often get signed away.’

Films are priced at $8.88 at quality suitable for computer monitors and portable devices such as iPods.

Whistler on the web

CTV is sparing little expense in pushing new drama Whistler on its similarly new broadband service, which was introduced last month.

The effort includes on-demand online broadcasts of each episode, original webisodes and character blogs. The 13 web-only shorts use brief scenes from various characters’ lives to get deeper into the murder mystery that drives the series.

Kris Faibish, VP of digital media, says CTV will be looking to adopt similar strategies with all of its shows going forward: ‘It’s all the extra-value stuff that’s really going to create hooks for people, especially if it really begins to… peak their curiosity for the next show.’

The webisodes air on the ctv.ca broadband channel, Monday mornings following the Sunday night broadcast. Whistler also airs in the U.S. on The N.

New game design program

Centennial College in Toronto has announced a new full-time digital game design program for fall 2006.

Game Design and Development is a two-year program at the college’s Centre for Creative Communications that will prepare 15 students for professional design work. The program consists of eight dedicated courses, several electives and a field placement. Students will study such topics as animation software 3ds Max, environment art design and game character design.

Instructors are drawn from the industry and include producer Alex Muscat (Shrek, Pariah), Pseudo Interactive level designer Jamie Richards and Groove Games senior artist Pum Sarai.

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The Hatch

Montreal-based Ubisoft and Touchstone Television are developing a video game based on Lost, expected for PCs and home and portable consoles by 2007.

The game version of the ABC/CTV series is at the concept stage, and is being developed with assistance from Lost producer Bryan Burk and co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof.

Ubisoft is also keeping busy with several other film-related games, all aimed at young kids: Open Season from Sony Pictures Animation, due in September; Surf’s Up, also from Sony, for summer 2007; and an adaptation of the new CG Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. *