Among her many roles and achievements, Trina McQueen is deputy chair of CTV and chair of the Banff Television Foundation’s board of governors. She was formerly the chair of the foundation’s board of directors, of which she’s been a member for more than 13 years. At the end of June, McQueen will be leaving CTV, where she held the position of president and COO until her resignation announcement six months ago.

And it came to pass that the God of Mammon looked at Banff and saw that it was good. ‘Excellent!’ she said. ‘Wheresoever a broadcaster and a producer are gathered together, there shall be pitches, there shall be deals, and My name shall be given honor.’

It’s certainly true that the God’s publicists have done a good job for her at the Banff Television Festival. Banff does have the buzz of worldly gain about it: the richest pitches; the hatching of great international coproductions; the giddy aura of bankable stars, and merchandizing deals.

But in its 22 years, Banff has also played a key role in the creative and strategic movements that have changed the landscape of television as dramatically as the ice age changed Alberta – and been a lot brisker about it than the glaciers.

Think of the contrasts. When the Banff Television Festival had its first conference the CBC was the mightiest of all players. It dominated Canadian television, but it also spent more on American programs than Global did. CTV programmed 40 hours a week and was run by feuding regional barons. Global and CHUM were basically still feisty startups, and the Craigs owned a CBC affiliate in Manitoba. The very few independent producers were seen as exotic, but crazy. There were no specialty channels, no DTH, no Alliance Atlantis, and online meant you were taking a telephone call on an apparatus attached to a wall.

The television festival was always about the future, however, and Banff’s conference program has foreshadowed, and been sometimes in the middle of, all the change.

The CBC keynote speakers have variously enraged, offended, delighted and inspired delegates with their various visions of that change.

I remember the very first keynote speaker, who had streaked through British media like a meteor. A Thatcherite gleaming with hair-oil, he tore apart the BBC, denouncing its dreamy class-ridden costume dramas and its left-wing documentaries. He saw satellites, competition and business. He disappeared shortly after (partly pushed by the published memoirs of a delicious courtesan girlfriend, who wrote about finding his hair-dye rubbed off on the pillow). But the BBC now looks remarkably like his vision then.

When CBC Newsworld and CNN were very new, and when Newsnet and CP24 didn’t exist, Banff gathered a panel of international journalists who saw live television news changing national and international politics, and the nature of democracy. They saw a global news agenda; they saw the dangers and the opportunities of instant access; and they painted an accurate picture of the news world we live in 15 years after their panel.

Michael Medved, a Hollywood gadfly, forecast the growing unease over television violence and the inevitability of government involvement. He was one of the many speakers who’ve reminded the audience that television changes hearts and minds; that what television makers do has consequences. Picking up on that line was last year’s speaker, Thomas Homer-Dixon.

Banff moved quickly to embrace the new specialty channels, and in the earliest days, A&E and Learning Channel were among the major players. A few years later, the CRTC chose the festival as the place to announce its latest round of licences (Bravo!, Discovery, Showcase) because, as it said, ‘all the players would be at Banff.’ And in the last five years, that same logic has applied to the new media cyber-players.

Looking back at the Banff conference programs, I see an evolution that parallels the evolution of television. In the beginning, it was all mass media. Everything was a plenary session. Even if you weren’t all that interested, you might show up because everyone else did, and you could miss something everyone was talking about.

Now, Banff is a 100-channel universe. Every delegate has his or her own festival, personalized and custom-made. A cyber lunch, a master class, a children’s panel, an African session. Maybe you’ll tune in for the keynote speaker, attend the awards, or dance at the barbecue. When you do, you’ll talk to people who have been at completely different festivals.

Many Banff veterans speak nostalgically of the coziness of the bygone festivals. To me, that coziness spoke of limitations and in-groups. I prefer the new Banff with its democracy of opportunity and alternatives. The intimacies that are found at Banff now are chosen intimacies and likely to be stronger and more lasting.

And the principles of the Banff conference program are enduring: the most interesting people setting their minds to the most interesting issues, in this the most interesting and ever-changing of all industries. Even the God of Mammon would agree.