Despite complaints of media concentration and a winnowing of options for TV-makers, producers acquainted with Alliance Atlantis Communications and its parent-to-be CanWest Global see an upside to the latter’s proposed $2.3-billion buyout of the Toronto cable channel giant, announced Jan. 10.

Degrassi: The Next Generation executive producer Stephen Stohn is, like many producers, looking to a higher power to bring an end to the ACTRA strike.

Box-office successes from French Canada are, for the third straight year, topmost among the nominations for the Genie Awards, which revealed the contenders for the 27th gala at CHUM Television headquarters in Toronto on Jan. 8.

Shaw Communications has sparked confusion and frustration among TV-makers following word that it is pulling its financial support from the Canadian Television Fund – taking some $56 million in annual contributions off the table.

Montreal: The lifetime achievement award at this year’s Prix Jutra will go to Pierre Curzi, the veteran Quebec actor known for his appearances in over 50 movies and TV shows including the 1977 miniseries Duplessis and Roméo et Juliette, the Shakespearean adaptation that now lords over the Quebec box office.

Quebec’s teen romance Roméo et Juliette remains the top-grossing Canadian film in theaters, having pulled in more than $1.2 million since its Dec. 15 release, though it lost its lead on the most recent Quebec box-office chart to Hollywood titles as of Jan. 11.

While no one who has watched a movie via Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will dispute their superiority over standard DVD, history reminds us that the Edsel was better than the Ford. And Betamax was a step beyond VHS.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period Jan. 5-11, 2007 and DVD sales in Canada for the period Dec. 25-31, 2006.

Charmion King, grande dame of Canadian stage and screen for 60 years, died in Toronto on Jan. 6 of complications from emphysema. She was 82.

Experimental filmmaker Helen Hill died when she and her husband Paul Gailiunas were shot, in a seemingly random attack, in their New Orleans home on Jan. 4. She was 36.

* Decode Entertainment has presold its new sci-fi cartoon Gizmo to YTV. The 26 x 30 series is a copro with Singapore’s Scrawl Studios and Agogo Entertainment in Hong Kong and is due for delivery this fall. Decode and YTV also recently inked a deal for the multi-platform property Urban Vermin.

Even when one allows for the off-the-scale buzz that preceded the arrival of Little Mosque on the Prairie, the ratings still made for an eye-popper of a surprise.