Life with Derek is set to air in Portugal, the Netherlands and Norway following a trio of deals at Shaftesbury

The BBC’s Hiroshima and a rerun of the homemade six-parter Sex, Truth and Videotape are among the 13 docs set for next month on CBC Newsworld

Competition for U.S. film shoots is fierce, and Hollywood producers are warning Toronto to take note.

After a three-year hiatus from directing feature films, Atom Egoyan is back in preproduction on Adoration, a drama set for a Sept. 17 start date in Toronto. His eleventh movie – and seventh with producer Robert Lantos – explores familiar thematic territory for the Oscar-nominated auteur, exploring intimacy and the nature of our relationship to media.

What a difference two points makes, depending on your job. A recent report from the CRTC says the Canadian Television Fund should lower its standards for Canadian content and fund programs that score as low as an eight on the 10-point CAVCO scale. This will make shows more marketable, say the feds. Problem is, it risks putting at-home directors, writers and actors out of work. And so – though we suspect we may already know everyone’s answers – we ask:

Everyone will have to wait until August for details on how CanWest Global Communications and partner Goldman Sachs will value and divvy up ownership of the pending Alliance Atlantis Communications/Global Television partnership in 2011.

HOT

• Citytv Toronto reporter David Onley has been named lieutenant governor of Ontario. One of Onley’s priorities will be to improve Ontario’s accessibility for the disabled.

• Decode Enterprises has purchased the worldwide television and home entertainment rights to Turner Broadcasting’s new live-action series My Spy Family. The series is produced by U.K.’s Kindle Entertainment and is the first non-Canadian title to be picked up by the Toronto company, a wing of Decode Entertainment.

The CRTC’s recommendation that the Canadian Television Fund lower its Cancon requirement for primetime projects, if instituted, would open up more options for producers, but the regulator shouldn’t expect the dramatic spike in audiences for Canadian shows that it seeks.

Watching Global Television and CTV battle it out behind the scenes for the hearts and minds of Canadian TV viewers this last little while has been top-notch viewing – much better than the sorry summer fare on the tube these days. (Curmudgeonly harrumph.)

For some producers, Internet and mobile offerings for made-for-TV properties are mere afterthoughts. But not for Insight Productions executive producer John Brunton, who says multiplatform strategies are at the core of his Toronto shop’s shows, which include CTV ratings topper Canadian Idol and Project Runway Canada, set to launch this fall on Slice.