Even though the formation of the publicly traded DHX Media marks a new corporate direction for both participating companies, it otherwise remains business as usual at The Halifax Film Company and Toronto’s Decode Entertainment.

To get a sense of what is moving in the current stock market, Playback asked five major suppliers what kinds of footage they are getting the most requests for, both in terms of format and content.

Add stock footage providers to the growing list of players seizing opportunities in the burgeoning world of new digital technologies.

Toronto-based stock footage player Canamedia has partnered with U.S. music catalog seller Pump Audio to provide Canadian TV and commercial producers with indie songs for background music.

The call for another pair of reports on the state of the TV industry is hardly out of the ordinary, except when the CRTC indicates that their results may lead to amendments to its controversial 1999 Television Policy.

CBC has unveiled a fall schedule heavy with reality and other factual entertainment borrowed from the U.S. and Britain, laying a trail of breadcrumbs across its expanded primetime schedule that, it is hoped, will lure young viewers back to the third-placed network.

Barbara Williams had a new strategy at the L.A. screenings this year – to focus on new shows from U.S. nets that are positioned around returning hits already held by Global Television. The result is the network’s impressive 2006/07 lineup, unveiled at its peppy, interactive upfront presentation earlier this month in Toronto.

Amid complaints that their funds are being stretched too thin, Telefilm Canada and SODEC have put their support behind a number of new films, including Denys Arcand’s follow-up to Les Invasions barbares, L’Âge des ténèbres.

Six of Quebec’s film and advertising associations have agreed to limit the sound level of ads and trailers in the province’s theaters.

The Movie Network and Movie Central have given the green light to two original dramas, Durham County and ZOS, and will bring back the sci-fi series ReGenesis for a third season this fall.

Director Greg Spottiswoode and his film Noise (above) won $5,000 and the prize for best Canadian short on June 18 at the close of the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. Among the other winnners, The Legend of the Scarecrow by Spain’s Marco Besas took the fest’s audience award, while directors Maxime Giroux (Le Rouge au Sol) and Chris Nash (Day of John) shared the win for best emerging Canadian filmmaker.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period June 9-15, 2006 and DVD sales in Canada for the period May 29-June 4, 2006.