* The Score has paid US$3.1 million for a three-year deal to air English Premier League soccer, starting in fall 2007.

* Cookie Jar Entertainment has named Wiebke Hoefer as director of European sales, based in Paris. The company also tapped Susan Richter as VP of U.S. licensing.

CBC is dropping its current plan of attack for suppertime news programming, and in February will axe its national newscast Canada Now to make room for expanded, hour-long local news.

Gerry Flahive (Souvenir of Canada, This Beggar’s Description) is a documentary producer at the National Film Board in Toronto.

For our readers, the Big Deal was the big deal in 2006. In a recent online Playback poll asking ‘What is the industry story of the year?’, 38% of respondents chose Bell Globemedia buying CHUM. This was followed by the CBC’s recent struggles (23%), the record-breaking box office for Bon Cop, Bad Cop (20%), the growth of new media (10%), the CRTC over-the-air TV review (6%) and union conflicts (3%).

The year winds down following plenty of heated talk from broadcasters, cablers and the production community, each pleading its case at the over-the-air TV hearing in Gatineau. The CRTC, meanwhile, is left to mull over a number of decisions of great consequence to the industry in 2007 and for years to come.

A Nov. 27 story stated that, in their IPA negotiations, ACTRA and the CFTPA had agreed on performers’ rest time between shooting days. Although ACTRA had stated that the current 11-hour time frame would not change, it is still looking for the definition of turnaround time to be changed to ‘door-to-door’ from ‘set-to-set.’

Halifax: Just three days after Poor Boy’s Game was in the can, Chaz Thorne went straight to work on his next picture – trading the docklands of Halifax for the rustic splendor of Nova Scotia’s countryside to make the dark comedy Pushing Up Daisies.

Calgary – The psychological thriller Straight Edge has ended five weeks of shooting in Fiji and relocated to Calgary, just in time for winter. The $15-million feature by Nomadic Pictures (The Mermaid Chair) and CD Films (Lies My Mother Told Me) of Montreal stars Mila Kunis (That ’70s Show), Gregory Smith (Everwood) and Peter Stormare (Fargo) – recounting the somewhat true story of troubled teens sent to a hellish rehab clinic in the tropics.

Toronto – The cheekily titled Young People F*!@ing is, no surprise, a comedy about ‘four couples, one threesome and a crazy night of sex’ and marks the feature directing debut of Martin Gero, better known as the writer and co-exec producer of Stargate: Atlantis.

Vancouver – Insight Film Studios wants to expand its client base and is hoping an ogre will help them do it. The Vancouver company is moving on from its recent spate of MOWs for Lifetime (Mind Games, Family in Hiding) to shoot a monster project for the Sci Fi Channel.

Toronto – Expect laughs but no happy endings on Love You To Death, the ‘provocative, yet humorous’ true crime series that will act out blissful marriages that unraveled into bloody murder. The 13 x 30 is shooting in Toronto until January for Global and Court TV, brought together by Blueprint Entertainment (Whistler, The Best Years) and hosted by John Waters.