JANUARY

• CTV starts its pre-game hype for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Yes, really.

• The Toronto International Film Festival lays the ‘final beam’ of its new Lightbox headquarters – leaving just 30-odd storeys of condos and some $31 million in fundraising to go.

• Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette air their annual, and perhaps last, Bye-Bye special on Radio-Canada – setting race relations in Quebec back to the 1930s in the process.

• Looking to offset its $3.7 billion debt, Canwest puts a freeze on hiring, meal and travel expenses, and returns two cases of old Dr. Pepper empties someone found at the Asper estate in Gimli.

• Howie Mandel collapses on the set of Howie Do It and, unfortunately, immediately returns to work.

FEBRUARY

• The makers of New Moon try, and fail, to keep production of the Twilight sequel in B.C. quiet.

• For the second time in six months, Filmport is proclaimed to be open and ready for business. Anyone? Step right up…

• Threatening to cut off Canada’s supply of entertainment news, short-run reality and needless exclamation points, Canwest puts its E! stations up for sale.

• Anyone who predicted in 2008 that conventional TV could do no worse loses both a bet and – before long, in all likelihood – a job when the CRTC’s latest data puts the profit plunge at 90%.

• Good news for Canada – the New York State tax-credit program is out of money!

• Hearts are clutched, faces go pale and pills are reached for when Konrad von Finckenstein floats the idea of, hey, what if we forced broadcasters to spend equally on foreign and domestic programming?

MARCH

• An unusually talented Canwest spokesperson manages to keep a straight face upon insisting, contrary to reports, that the company is not preparing to sell Network Ten in Australia.

• The Rubik’s Cube that was the Canadian Television Fund is scrapped, to be replaced by the Gordian Knot that is the Canada Media Fund.

• Finding no extra cash in Ottawa or under the sofa cushions, CBC and Radio-Canada lay off 800 people. Later that month at the unemployment office, the former CBCers meet up with 118 former A Channel-istas.

APRIL

• The ‘lipstick factor’ is the official buzzword for the quarter, as exhibitor revenues climb some 16% despite the economic End Times.

• Cleared of all fraud charges, former Peace Arch CEO Gary Howsam strips to the waist and does a victory lap around that L.A. steakhouse, whoop-whoop-whooping like Curly Howard.

• Deep in the echoing expanse of Toronto’s Filmport, a single, lonely tumbleweed blows across the floor.

MAY

• ‘Hello to Mr. Ivan Fecan of CTV globe and media. I am being Jim Shaw, wealthy investorman in Nigeria, and I be very interesting in buy your TV stations. I pay $1 eachly. It good deal. You should taken it.’

• Rogers Cable agrees to carry TSN2, ending months of stonewalling with a carriage deal and the traditional, celebratory chest bump.

• Twenty-year-old Xavier Dolan puts the rest of us to shame with his three wins in Cannes.

• That’s odd. When CTV was called to defend the spurious ethics of its ‘news’ special about the state of local television, why do you suppose it was a regulatory exec who spoke up, and not news boss Robert Hurst?

• SODEC is scandalized by an auditor general’s report – notable as the first to contain the phrase ‘like drunken sailors on a three-day bender in Shanghai.’

JUNE

• Ken Ferguson is out of a job following the takeover of Filmport by Pinewood Shepperton. Somewhere, a Mirkopoulos is laughing.

• Industry Minister Tony Clement vows to table new copyright legislation by the fall. If anyone has seen it, please let us know.

• Iranian security forces are kind enough to prove Maziar Bahari’s point about the political climate in Tehran by arresting the Canadian docmaker and Newsweek reporter and keeping him locked up for four months.

• Sons of Anarchy and Spaceballs: The Animated Series prove not to be as popular as hoped as Super Channel files for creditor protection.

• The loonie is back up to 92 cents. Bad loonie! Down! Depreciate!

JULY

• Seeking to spur production of comedies, the Canadian Film Centre and Telefilm Canada begin an arduous search for any comic talents who haven’t already moved to L.A.

• ‘25% off everything,’ says Quebec, upping its tax credit. Ontario struggles to match it, B.C. misses by a mile.

AUGUST

• Wishing to soothe the nerves of investors, Leonard Asper issues a statement that, contrary to speculation on Bay Street, the red ink only comes up to his knees.

• Kind words in their defense from Gordon Pinsent, Martha Henry and Christopher Plummer notwithstanding, Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb are sentenced to seven and six years, respectively, over the Livent scandal.

• A year-long migration of Canadian shows – Copper, The Listener, The Bridge, The Border, The Guard – into the U.S. is joined by Defying Gravity, which flies to, then falls off, the ABC schedule.

SEPTEMBER

• ‘New licences for everyone,’ says CRTC, adding, ‘See you again next year.’

• Canwest sells its stake in Network Ten – shoveling another $634 million, give or take, into the money pit. Meanwhile, CHEK in Victoria breaks away from its troubled parent in a staff-led buyout.

• Reason and civility take a week-long vacation as filmmakers are polarized by TIFF’s spotlight on movies from Tel Aviv.

• Claude Robinson is, briefly, the richest animator in the country upon winning his $5.2 million copyright case against the remains of Cinar. (Psst! Party at his house if the ruling survives appeal. Pass it on.)

OCTOBER

• Close but no cigar – a deal by adman Bruce Claassen to save CKX in Manitoba falls through, killing the station and 39 jobs.

• TV viewers across the country are gripped by an unprecedented sense of solidarity as they fight the urge to smack that guy from the ‘TV tax’ ads.

• Heading off a fight before the Supreme Court, Ottawa settles its decade-long fight with broadcasters over ‘part two’ fees. Did it give back the $670 million? Don’t be silly.

NOVEMBER

• The former staff of CBC, the A channels and, CHCA in Red Deer, and CKX are joined in the unemployment line by 900 managers from Rogers. That iPhone revenue only goes so far, apparently.

• The penny – Canwest’s last one, as it turns out – finally drops as the humbled media giant files for creditor protection.

• CBC overhauls its news division, rebranding Newsworld in the process. If the ads on ‘CBC News Network’ are any indication, there’s still no one watching who’s under 65.

DECEMBER

• In a last-ditch effort to shave costs, the industry gives itself the rest of the year off work, unpaid of course.