-LOOK gets MMDS licence

The crtc has approved a licence application for look tv to provide a multichannel multipoint distribution service to Southern Ontario.

look is an undertaking of Teleglobe Media Enterprises, a division of Montreal-based Teleglobe, which owns 74.5% of the service, as well as Baton Broadcasting, C.I. Covington Fund, Toronto’s Novanet Communications and Scott Colbran, former president of Rogers Cable, who will act as president and ceo of look.

The crtc cited the facts that the enterprise had sufficient financial resources to serve its coverage area and d’es not plan to charge subscribers a down payment to lease necessary equipment as key to its ability to compete with existing cable as well as new dth services.

look proposes to offer 75 video channels at the outset, scaling up to 150 channels later, and will contribute 5% of its gross annual revenues to developing Canadian programming as per licence conditions.

-Ramsden leaves IATSE

Veteran union boss Don Ramsden, after a decade in the president’s chair at Vancouver’s IATSE Local 891, left in July to work on the other side of the bargaining table.

Ramsden is line producing the independent, $8-million feature Jane ­ which was put on hold at press time.

Jane, if the amber light turns to green, begins work in front of the camera Aug. 25. It stars Melanie Griffith and is produced by the independent Ministry of Film.

-UBCP skirmish

At press time, the Union of B.C. Performers was again in front of the provincial Labour Relations Board battling with producers. This time, the dispute pertains to Leslie Nielsen’s second summer movie produced in Vancouver, Wrongfully Accused. Because producer Westbay Entertainment has not yet signed a collective agreement with the union, ubcp is advising its members not to audition. The producers, in taking a complaint to the lrb, charge this constitutes an illegal strike.

In light of a recent lrb decision to delay the union’s right to strike Police Academy: The Series, union president Peter Partridge sees a pattern of union busting. ‘It seems that the major Hollywood studios are going to continue to try to use the labor board to deny performers their basic rights. We are deeply concerned by this development. If a union can’t tell their members not to work for a non-union company, this could have far-reaching implications for all unionized workers in the province.’

Wrongfully Accused, a spoof of The Fugitive, is scheduled to go into production Aug. 18.