Vancouver: On March 16, the Supreme Court of British Columbia handed a $351,000 judgment to Water Street Pictures of Vancouver in a breach-of-trust lawsuit launched against now-defunct Forefront Releasing, along with Vancity Capital Corporation and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

Vancouver: On March 16, Vancouver’s Paperny Films sent a cut of the one-hour $250,000 Discovery Health special Thirst for Life to the Canadian Television Fund – hoping that the project would actually get the $50,000 in funding promised from the CTF in 2004.
Like other documentary projects that have fallen under strict scrutiny from the CTF, the Paperny project, about the health benefits of red wine, may not get its funding after all.

It has been busier than usual these past few weeks at the Canadian Television Fund. The March 1 deadline was looming, bringing in reams of paperwork from across the country and, on Feb. 14, an unflattering piece in The Globe and Mail touched a raw nerve about documentaries and Canadian content, sending fund boss Sandra Macdonald and her board of directors into full-on damage control mode.

Canada’s burgeoning specialty, pay and pay-per-view television services broke the $2-billion threshold in 2004, growing revenues 9% over 2003, says the CRTC in its Pay and Specialty Statistic and Financial Summaries 2000-2004 report.

Vancouver: Eleven West Coast companies have been tapped for the first round of financing from B.C. Film’s Slate Development Fund and are each expected to take home $150,000 to develop new shows.

With the NHL hockey season officially on ice, Canadian sports broadcasters are turning to Swedish hockey, vintage games, NASCAR, the NBA and any number of other tricks to stem the loss of ad dollars and to round out schedules that, for this year and perhaps next, have been left vacant by intractable hockey players and team owners.

Vancouver: On Feb. 11, B.C.’s Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development issued a self-congratulatory release about new business generated by the boosting of the service and domestic tax credits, announced on Jan. 20.

Vancouver: Veteran mediator Vince Ready has been named by the B.C. government’s Ministry of Labour to hammer out the final and outstanding details on the Tysoe Report, first presented a year ago. Ready’s industrial inquiry, which was announced Feb. 7, will present its findings April 1.

After four months on the job as CBC’s executive VP in charge of English television, Richard Stursberg is asking the federal government for $84 million to get back some of the regional glory of the public broadcaster.
In an address to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Feb. 3, Stursberg said he wants to speed up the pace of change at the CBC to deal with the crisis in Canadian drama, to strengthen the regional roots of CBC TV, and to renew CBC’s commitment to news, children’s, sports and cultural programming.

Vancouver: With his audience numbers in steady decline, Canada’s busiest and longest-running television coroner is getting a new job and new series this fall on CBC.
Dominic Da Vinci, played by actor Nicholas Campbell for seven seasons so far, will move from Da Vinci’s Inquest to become Vancouver’s mayor in the sequel Da Vinci’s City Hall – a move identical to that of the character’s inspiration, Larry Campbell, Vancouver’s former chief coroner and current mayor.

Divine Restoration could also be the name of a series about the rebound of NATPE, and not just one of the hotter-selling titles at this year’s market from Ellis Entertainment.

Vancouver: Answering threats of an exodus from the West Coast, the B.C. government announced on Jan. 20 that it will match the recently increased service and domestic tax credits of Ontario.