Montreal-based Cine-Groupe has closed a us$15-million financing deal with Imperial Entertainment Group, a Beverly Hills-based division of specialty finance group Imperial Bank. The deal will fund the upcoming animated theatrical feature Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.2. Columbia TriStar will distribute the film domestically…

Balmur Entertainment, a company founded by Canadian songbird Anne Murray, has expanded from music into animated family entertainment with the purchase of l.a.-based Evening Sky Entertainment and Toronto commercial animation studio The Animation House….

Montreal: Canada Economic Development has announced a $9-million grant to Behaviour Communications’ soon-to-be-launched digital production facility, Behaviour Studio….

The ratings are in for the final round of Canadian primetime drama debuts….

The CTV Network and Englewood, co.-based investment company LMC International are first in line to scoop The Molson Company’s 20% of CTV Sportsnet in the wake of the crtc denying the voting interest transfer between Molson and Rogers Broadcasting….

The controversy surrounding the August exit of Film nb exec director Sam Grana persists as the province’s fledgling film industry’s producers association has splintered into two groups. The recently formed Professional Producers Association of New Brunswick has broken away from the…

as Playback goes to press, Montreal-based software company Discreet Logic is readying its 1999 first quarter results with a warning to shareholders already in place: revenues are expected at $25 million to $27 million and earnings between 3 cents and 8…

Montreal: Telefilm Canada is negotiating with industry partners for management control of a new feature film fund. The talks are taking place as the board of the Canadian Television Fund prepares to release revamped guidelines for both program components sometime in…

YTV has come a long way since Sept. 1, 1988, when then Minister of Communications Flora MacDonald ‘flipped the switch’ and approximately 4 million subscribers tuned in to John Candy introducing Canada to the first ever kids television network….

Vancouver: Mainframe Entertainment of Vancouver has acquired the rights to Gene Roddenberry’s Starship, an original concept by the creator of Star Trek….

A new national equity investment fund announced by Shaw Communications will hand out over $3 million in its first year to support children’s, youth and family programming…

Not only does YTV the television network have a new ‘weird’ look and an unprecedented number of fresh programs, it has a range of non-television endeavours that will raise the network’s profile in some unexpected places. Timed to coincide with its…