Regulatory VP says CRTC rule against same-market, same-language stations shouldn’t stop the Rogers Media play for Vancouver’s Channel M and Citytvs

Another week, another million as high-powered French release continues to dominate the domestic box office for Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm

The worldwide concert peaked at 672,000 on Saturday after Madonna’s show but, minute for minute, the 29-hour enviro-palooza on CTV lost to the recent Concert for Diana

The CRTC says it will rethink its decade-old BDU rules in early 2008, looking to do away with ad time limits and genre protection

Live-action kiddie series My Spy Family is the first foreign property to be handled by the Toronto distributor

In the battle for Canadian eyeballs, CTV has conquered primetime for five consecutive years. The network finished the 2006/07 season with eight of Canada’s top-10 programs, and 16 of the top-20 shows.

With the CBC completing the paperwork cementing its takeover of The Documentary Channel, a debate rages. CBC says the move is a win-win-win for the pubcaster, doc audiences, and independent producers, but a doc producers’ group says its members are frustrated by the CRTC’s attitude toward them, fearful for the future of POV docs, and alarmed that licence fees will fall.

Last time we checked, New Zealanders were still watching TV, even though they do not have a single word of law that prevents overseas companies from owning Kiwi stations. Just ask CanWest Global. And yet the majority presence of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs in the CanWest bid for Alliance Atlantis has reignited the question of how big a stake, if any, foreign companies should be allowed to own in Canuck casters. So we ask:

CTV has inked a major deal with Viacom’s Comedy Central for exclusive broadcast and multiplatform rights in Canada to the cable channel’s entire programming slate. The deal, announced June 26, allows CTV to deliver everything from full episodes to clips and ringtones via broadband, mobile, VOD, or any other platform.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television has chosen former Bay Street media and entertainment lawyer Sara Morton as its new CEO. She took office on July 3.

Norman Jewison, Moses Znaimer and Gordon Pinsent were among the industry icons on hand at Toronto’s Drake Hotel on June 26 to be inducted into the inaugural Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame, organized by Playback.

• Paul Atkinson is the new chairman of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. Atkinson will sit on the 24-member board alongside four new directors – filmmaker Deepa Mehta, Bell Canada executive William J. Fox, UCS Forest Group CEO Warren Spitz and Constance Sugiyama, senior partner at the law firm of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. Atkinson has been on the TIFFG board since 2004 and is also its campaign co-chair.