For the first time in its history, the Banff World Television Festival will award a French-speaking Quebecer its top comedy prize.

MTV Canada has signed an exclusive wireless distribution deal with Bell Mobility, meaning viewers who want their MTV must become Bell Mobility subscribers to watch its ’10 Spot’ wireless programming block.

* Tom Haberstroh is the new VP and GM of CTV British Columbia. Haberstroh has been at the net for 23 years as an executive producer, field producer and, most recently, VP of CTV News.

The Banff festival has assembled a heavyweight lineup for this year’s In Conversation series. Some of North America’s most popular shows are represented by Howard Davine, executive VP, Touchstone Television (Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost) – to be interviewed by Playback editor Mark Dillon – and Gary Carter, chief creative officer, new platforms, at Fremantle Media (American Idol), who will be interviewed by NATPE president and CEO Rick Feldman.

The news out of both the CBC and the U.S. network fall launches is bad news for some Canadian prodcos – or, at least, it’s going to force them to rethink their business plans.

On the heels of the Playback Mobile Forum, many readers are bullish on wireless. In response to a recent online Playback poll asking, ‘What is the potential of mobile TV?’, 35% of respondents voted that they see it as a revenue generator in its own right, while 33% see the medium as good mostly for sports, news and weather. Meanwhile, 21% think it’s mostly hype, and 11% felt it would amount to a promotional tool for traditional TV.

John Williams is producer of Space Chimps, not the executive producer, as reported in the May 15 story ‘Chimps launch new studio.’

The Banff World Television Festival will this year recognize four decades of innovation in the post-production field when manufacturer Quantel receives the Deluxe Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.

CTV got some free publicity for its upcoming Doomstown MOW (above) when the notorious Toronto gangland it depicts was hit by the city’s largest-ever police raid on May 18. The crime drama – directed by Sudz Sutherland (Love, Sex and Eating the Bones) and produced by Sarrazin Couture Entertainment – airs on June 11.

Discovery Channel and Montreal’s Galafilm Productions are confident that fascination with the planet Mars and its exploration will translate into not one, but two hit shows.

Kirk Shaw says his Insight Film Studios will produce 28 TV movies in 2006 – almost double the 17 it made last year – and all to be shot in Vancouver.

The launch of TVtropolis has opened the door for a number of series about the higher and odder points of recent TV history, now in the works and due to debut by early fall.