Vancouver: Making it big for a Vancouver producer might be a stint on Oprah’s Oxygen Network, a feat Force Four Productions will achieve March 12 when the one-hour pilot of Making it Big airs.
The documentary series with reality elements, which also airs on Life Network in Canada April 24, is about three up and comers who vie for an opportunity of a lifetime.

In the same year in which domestic producers felt the pinch of scarce funding dollars, Canadian conventional broadcasters enjoyed a level of profitability in 2003 not seen since 1999.

The new minister of Canadian heritage says restoration of the federal government’s support of the Canadian Television Fund is a priority for her but, with the new federal budget just weeks away, she is offering no guarantees to put anxious producers at ease.

Vancouver: On Jan. 26, in his first cabinet shuffle since taking office in 2001, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell shifted the responsibility for the provincial film industry to Chilliwack-Sumas MLA John Les, the former government caucus chair and the newly minted minister of small business and economic development.

Vancouver: Omni Film Productions in Vancouver has put out the welcome mat for emerging writers and directors with the new CTV series Robson Arms (formerly Keys Cut Here).
The drama/comedy series – which is a B.C./Nova Scotia coproduction with Creative Atlantic Communications (Janice Evans and Greg Jones) in Halifax – tells the stories of the residents of Robson Arms, an apartment building in Vancouver’s urban West End neighborhood.

Just four months after the splashy launch of Toronto 1 in October, Calgary-based owner Craig Media finds itself in the deep end of the pool and looking for a buyer.
The ambitious broadcaster, according to sources, has failed to meet its revenue targets and as a result is being pressured to sell by its U.S. investor Providence Equity Partners.

Vancouver: The Year of the Monkey means a year of concessions for Vancouver’s service production sector, bracing for a 25% downturn in volumes because of the rising Canadian dollar, declining drama volumes and international competition for locations.

Federal financial assistance to the film and video industry grew 9.1% to $234.8 million in fiscal year 2001/02, according to a new StatsCan report on cultural spending published Jan. 7.

Vancouver: Stargate Atlantis will come up for air before the eighth and probably last season of production on Stargate SG-1, from which Atlantis was spun off.
SCI-FI Channel and MGM Television Entertainment will do 20 hours of each of the series, which means a lot of dough for the local film economy and more work for some production staffers, now doing double duty this season.

Vancouver: Two years ago, British Columbia’s minister of competition, science and enterprise laid down a challenge: double B.C.’s production industry to $2 billion by 2004.
Even then, industry insiders, including the 70 delegates at the B.C. Film & Television Summit 2001 where Rick Thorpe tried to rally the troops, were squirming with discomfort. The domestic industry was already in steep decline and international markets were conspiring against growth of the service sector.

Vancouver: Executive producer Kirk Shaw started out in the audio recording business 14 years ago when he cofounded what would become Vancouver-based Insight Film & Video Production. Now he’s turning up the volume in another way, by boosting his 2004 production budgets to $29 million, up 45% compared to last year.

The fate of Canada’s woebegone film and television sector is in the hands of three new federal cabinet ministers, including an unknown who is now in charge of Canadian culture.