*Genies Awards gear up

The 20th annual Genie Awards will be hosted by Patrick McKenna. The Traders/New Red Green Show star will be joined at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre by presenters David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar, Jason Priestley, Elaine Cassidy and Mary-Louise Parker, among others.

As well as presenting, Canadian pop icon Burton Cummings will perform his Genie-winning single from 1983, Save My Soul.

The show, slated for Sunday, Jan. 30, will be broadcast live on cbc at 8 p.m. Star! The Entertainment Station will carry a live, one-hour preshow starting at 6 p.m.

*Air Farce to continue to 2003

Top-rated Canadian comedy series The Royal Canadian Air Farce has extended its contract with the cbc until 2003, when it will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the Corp.

Produced by Air Farce Productions in association with the cbc, the series will continue to shoot at the cbc headquarters in downtown Toronto. ‘Screw you crtc,’ quipped Farce star Luba Goy, in making the announcement with fellow troupers Roger Abbott, Don Ferguson and John Morgan.

‘This is what we hope to be doing more of in the future,’ said cbc president and ceo Robert Rabinovitch. ‘Maybe we’ll even get crtc approval, from time to time.’

More than 2.6 million Canadians watch Air Farce weekly on cbc. It is also broadcast in the u.s., Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.