Canadian Idol’s audience just keeps growing – its third-season, three-night premiere on CTV bested last year’s by approximately 26%, for a combined total average audience of two million viewers per episode. The shows ran May 30 to June 1. According to data from BBM Canada, 2.3 million viewers tuned in on May 30, 2.1 million on May 31 and 1.8 million on June 1.

After being stalled by the near collapse of the minority Liberal government in May, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage completed the first stage of its investigation into Canada’s feature film industry with a public hearing in Vancouver June 9-10. The cross-Canada tour also included hearings with members of film and television communities in Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.

On the heels of a serious production slump, Toronto has rebounded into one of its busiest seasons in years, and many in the industry are confident business will stay strong. This summer, the city is home to service features with budgets of more than US$60 million, and is playing host to big-name talent including Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, Michael Douglas, Kim Basinger and Antonio Banderas.

Producers and broadcasters are worried that proposed changes to the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit at the hands of the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office will seriously impede the already-difficult task of financing indigenous film and television.
‘Our greatest concern is that producers won’t be able to negotiate the deals they need to negotiate in order to bring projects to fruition,’ says Susanne Vaas, CFPTA VP of business affairs. ‘Financing film and television productions has never been more difficult, and restricting access to the CPTC will only serve to curtail production activity.’

The Canadian Television Fund’s May 16 decisions for English-language drama, which rejected 44% of the total dollars requested, has left some producers wondering if the current approach to drama is working.

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage investigation into domestic feature films slowed last month amid the near-collapse of the federal government. Hearings in Vancouver, scheduled for May 4 and 5, as well as those in Halifax, scheduled for May 18 and 19, were postponed to the first week of June. The tour should reach Vancouver before committee members move on to the Banff World Television Festival, June 12-15.

If you want access to the latest information and statistics on the current state of Canada’s drama crisis, you’d better be at Banff. The Canadian Coalition of Audio-visual Unions will present a new study focusing on 10-point, English-language drama on June 13, day two of the 2005 Banff World Television Festival.

CTV made ratings history on May 20 with its broadcast of the two-hour season finale of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Nearly five million Canadians tuned in to watch ‘Grave Danger,’ the special episode helmed by Quentin Tarantino.

Vancouver: David Doerkson, former president of Saskatoon, SK-based prodco Edge Entertainment, is in the final stages of completing a deal that will essentially merge Edge with Vancouver’s Waterfront Pictures to form a new company. Doerkson says he has been working on the deal for 18 months and expects it to be finalized Sept. 30.
The new company, which will go under the Waterfront banner, will focus on distribution, with Doerkson taking the reigns. Production will continue to be an element of the company, although Doerkson says volumes will be smaller than those he was used to at Edge, which in 2002 produced four MOWs based on stories by Mary Higgins Clark. Each movie was budgeted at $2.8 million.

Victoria, BC: In addition to teaching and mentoring, leading international pitch sessions, and holding key positions at a number of international festivals, Pat Ferns now heads up his own production company and has several big-budget documentary projects in the works.
The former CEO of the Banff Television Foundation also signed a strategic partnership agreement last year with Chicago-based indie prodco Towers Productions (American Justice). Ferns says it is too early to reveal details of a four-hour doc series he is currently developing for Towers, but says he’ll be working with noted author and Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff.

An ongoing conflict between Shaw Cable and the owners of PrideVision TV and OUTtv may be settled sooner than expected, following a CRTC hearing set for July 8, after which the commission will have one week to make a ruling. The ‘expatiated’ hearing is the first to be held over a broadcast matter.

Montreal: Muse Entertainment is bringing together top Hollywood names with Quebec’s leading on-screen talent to tackle the disturbing topic of the underground sex trade in a $15-million miniseries for Lifetime Television in the U.S.
Principal photography on Human Trafficking started in Montreal April 17, and will continue until June 6. The production then moves to Prague for one week, followed by 10 days in Thailand, wrapping at the end of June.