Aug. 31, 1984: MuchMusic is launched on Canadian cable. Teenagers sit glued to their TVs, watching an entirely new form of television. But they’re not the only ones whose lives are being changed – launching Much vaults CHUM Television from the local Toronto stage to a national presence.

When CHUM acquired Citytv in 1978, the company’s only goal was to get into local television programming. How things have changed. In 2004, a fair chunk of CHUM’s $560 million in revenue came through international format licences and program sales to more than 120 countries worldwide, through its CHUM Television International division.

Cowboys and Indians – The Killing of J.J. Harper (The Film Works, High Definition Pictures)

For years, CBC has raked in far more hardware at the Gemini Documentary, News & Sports Gala than its private broadcaster counterparts. That shouldn’t come at all as a surprise – the Ceeb produces the biggest volume of Canadian programming and has long excelled in news, doc and sports shows.

Does the CBC want to be able to hire and fire employees at will? Or does Canada’s public broadcaster simply need the same ‘flexibility’ enjoyed by private broadcasters – namely, to acquire talent as needed to produce new shows, and to release this same talent when these shows don’t pan out?

Structurally, the Canadian/German/ Israeli coproduction team behind the $2.8-million tragicomedy Metallic Blues is mind-bendingly complex.

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In addition to his management duties and work as a producer at Dufferin Gate Productions and Temple Street Productions, Patrick Whitley is one of the production sector’s busiest advocates. A significant part of that has seen him as a CFTPA board member for the past six years.

The relationship between New York-based Showtime Networks and Dufferin Gate has lasted 10 years, and is built on a more solid foundation than many marriages. According to Michael Rauch, Showtime’s EVP of motion picture production, the ongoing partnership has been based largely on trust.

Laura Michalchyshyn, Alliance Atlantis Communications’ senior VP of dramatic programming, admits to being a big fan of Dufferin Gate Productions. Small wonder – Temple Street Productions, Dufferin Gate’s sister company, coproduces Queer as Folk (along with Cowlip Productions and Tony Jonas Productions), an adaptation of a limited-run British series about gay relationships. The show is a major attraction for AAC’s Showcase specialty, sometimes pulling in more than 340,000 viewers per ep.