Top 20 TV Programs tracks ratings for the top 20 television shows in Canada for the period July 24-30, 2006.

Gnosis Games was among the 28 companies that scored funding for various videogames, websites and mobile projects in the latest round of the Canada New Media Fund – which cut a cheque for development of Broken Saints: The Game.

Kigali, Rwanda: It’s more red tape than red carpet as the feature Shake Hands with the Devil shoots on location in this once-bloody African nation.
The $10-million production dramatizing the 100 days the 1994 Rwandan genocide – as seen through the eyes of retired Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire – first had to contend with 400,000 pounds of production gear being shipped from Canada, including eight cameras for two units, which got held up in customs for a month.

OIAF unveils lineup

The specially channels under the Alliance Atlantis umbrella have revealed their plans for the coming fall season, putting foul-mouthed cowboys, second-hand goaltenders and genealogists into primetime. Highlights of the lineup, all times Eastern, include:

The film and TV sector enjoyed higher revenue and profits in 2004, despite a drop in production dollars, according to numbers just released by Statistics Canada. The federal agency says a 10.6% drop in production from 2001 to 2004 – the most recent year for which figures were available – was offset by a healthy 50.5% revenue jump in sectors such as broadcasting and film distribution.

Sander Gibson is a business law attorney specializing in entertainment law with Gascon & Associates LLP in Montreal, and acts as an arbitrator and mediator in entertainment and commercial matters in Canada.

It would seem that Playback readers have some concerns about media concentration. In a recent online Playback poll asking ‘Should the federal regulators approve the Bell Globemedia purchase of CHUM?’, 77% of respondents voted No, and 23% voted Yes.

The July 24 news item ‘Boros gets boost’ misspelled the name of filmmaker Philip Borsos and the award given in his honor at the Whistler Film Festival.

In its controversial $1.4-billion bid to acquire CHUM Ltd., Bell Globemedia/CTV says it just wants what chief competitor CanWest Global already has.

Producer Tim Alp didn’t want to spend a lot of money on his next show, so he came up with Be Real.

Montreal – Filmmaker Brian McKenna (Big Sugar) is hoping that nostalgia will win over audiences for his ambitious CBC miniseries, The Great War.