Bolstered by May tentpole releases including Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third, and a strong late-summer showing from The Simpsons Movie and The Bourne Ultimatum, the summer of 2007 was the biggest in history on both sides of the border.

NFB Cross Media Challenge

• CTV and TSN have signed former NFL quarterback and star of The Bachelor Jesse Palmer to double duty as an entertainment correspondent for CTV’s eTalk Daily and an NFL analyst for TSN.

• TSN has signed an eight-year extension for regional broadcasts of the Toronto Maple Leafs, to be seen in all but the easternmost corner of Ontario.

Private Practice or The Tudors? Back to You or Blood Ties? With the fall season underway, the networks are again pushing the latest shows from the U.S. and, sometimes, Canada. Many will fail and join the likes of Joey and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on the ash heap of television. One or two will be a hit, delighting viewers, advertisers and accounting departments in equal measure. But which ones? And so we ask:

The concept behind short-film channel Movieola was not about the multi-platform power of the short. Au contraire. Its launch in the 2002 broadcast season actually predated the ability to deliver film over the Internet in any meaningful way. At the time, motion picture on the web was slow and clunky, and the resolution grainy.

Teens today are the first generation to watch less television and attend fewer movies than their predecessors, as they turn increasingly to their computers and handheld devices, noted participants at a New Online Portal panel, which kicked off the Toronto International Film Festival’s first day on Sept. 6.

Have you tried to make a wife happy? How about four wives? Paul Kilback, producer and director of the upcoming 4 x 60 doc Shaye, has. Kinda.

Advertising executive-turned-writer/director Bill Keenan has lured the seasoned acting chops of The Newsroom’s Peter Keleghan and Leah Pinsent and Little Mosque on the Prairie’s Neil Crone to his first feature film production, Eating Buccaneers.

When producer André Rouleau read the script for Magique, a France/Canada copro about a melancholic rural family that gets a surprise visit from a traveling circus, he knew it would be a very original film.

Following his roving-reporter stint on Canadian Idol, Ottawa-born comedian Jon Dore is working double duty as host and creator on a new skit, comedy and interview series for The Comedy Network, The Jon Dore Show. Inspired by the likes of Late Night with Conan O’Brien and featuring Toronto-based sketch comedy acts such as Knock Knock, Who’s There? Comedy!, the half-hour series will bow on the cable channel on Oct. 18 for a 13-episode run.

Peace Point Entertainment has gone to camera on a new show, and is shooting a two-season 26 x 30 run of Fresh with Anna Olson until November for Food Network Canada. The pastry chef-turned-broadcaster has opened her turn-of-the-century country home, in the Niagara region of Ontario, to the show, which has her preparing fresh and local food for special occasions.