Halifax: It was hard to get away from Ricky, Julian and Bubbles at this year’s ShowCanada. Time and again, there they were. Around every corner, at every podium. Holding a press conference, introducing a highlight reel or smoking out behind the hotel – the boys of Trailer Park Boys were front and center to pre-hype their soon-to-shoot movie.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period April 22-28 and television ratings for the period April 25 – May 1.

The 12th annual Hot Docs, April 22 to May 1, marked the Toronto doc fest’s biggest and busiest year to date. Audiences grew, delegate numbers were up and, with documentaries becoming a hotter commodity for broadcasters and theatrical distributors internationally, market events were busier than ever.

The National Film Board took the opportunity of Hot Docs to announce a pair of international initiatives, including a new prize at the Cannes Film Festival dedicated to animated shorts pioneer Norman McLaren.

Canada’s place as a producer of feature film documentaries dominated talk at the second annual Doc Policy Summit, held April 25 in Toronto in conjunction with Hot Docs.

Las Vegas: Products for HD capture, post and broadcast dominated the awards handed out at the recent National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas (April 16-21).

Canadians are watching less U.S. TV, and Statistics Canada has the graphs to prove it, showing that domestic news and current affairs shows are growing in popularity among Canadians at the expense of American-made dramas and comedies.

YTV and Teletoon lead the way with six nominations each for The Alliance for Children and Television 2005 Awards of Excellence. Programs in all genres and animation classifications will be recognized. This year’s award gala will see two new categories introduced: best interstitial or short program, and best website associated with a children’s program.

Maple launches Banff award

* Hollywood veteran Fred Fuchs is now EVP at Peace Arch Entertainment, responsible for all TV drama and digital properties and for increasing feature film production and sales. Fuchs (Dark Angel, The Godfather Part 3) worked at Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope for 12 years but recently relocated to Toronto.

CHUM Limited has restructured its television division into three functional groups under three VPs, each of whom reports to Jay Switzer, president and CEO of CHUM.

VisionTV has been taking stock and decided it needs a new outlook. While the Toronto-based faith and spirituality specialty is still not-for-profit, it has switched its focus to becoming a competitive broadcaster in the minds of media planners and buyers.