CHUM reorganizes in west

CHUM Television is reorganizing its western TV properties, moving its Access Media Group channels and A-Channel Edmonton to its Edmonton office. Master control and traffic for the group’s ACCESS, Canadian Learning Television and BookTelevision are moving to A-Channel Calgary’s operations center. CHUM will lay off 17 people and add four as part of the shuffle, which mirrors similar steps taken earlier this month at CHUM’s NewNet stations in Ontario.

The company says it will incur a one-time cost of $440,000, with annualized projected savings of $900,000.

CHUM is now the sole owner of Learning and Skills Television of Alberta, having bought the 40% share owned by Moses Znaimer and others earlier this month. Znaimer held on to the shares after exiting CHUM in 2003. The buyout formally ends their connection after 32 years.

Hot Docs celebrates Morris

Celebrated documentarian Errol Morris will receive the Outstanding Achievement Award for 2005 at Hot Docs. Director of seven feature docs, Morris won an Academy Award for 2003’s The Fog of War and is also known for 1988’s The Thin Blue Line, which resulted in the release from prison of a Texas man wrongly convicted of murder.

A retrospective of Morris’ work will screen at the 12th annual documentary film festival, which runs April 22 to May 1 in Toronto.

In addition, Canadian director Larry Weinstein will be the subject of the fest’s fourth Focus On program.

Business up in northern B.C.

Despite a downturn in the rest of the West Coast production last year, the Northern British Columbia Film Commission reports increased business activity in 2004. According to film commissioner Karen Cameron in Prince George, location requests were up 11% in 2004 over 2003 to 77. Last year, the commission devoted significant effort to building its digital photo library, which doubled in size to 5,000 images representing more than 500 locations in northern B.C.

CTV signs with AP

CTV has signed a deal to distribute news and entertainment footage from Associated Press Television News in Canada, while AP will carry the net’s collection of news, entertainment and sports footage to its international clients. AP provides video to broadcasters, websites and other outlets around the world, including BBC, ABC and Fox.