CHUM reorganizes in west

Broadcasters brought in more money in 2004 but they couldn’t hang on to it, according to stats released this month by the CRTC. Canadian private broadcasters saw revenues climb 1% last year, to $2.1 billion, while costs took a 22.7% bite out of the year’s overall earnings.

You know you’re a ‘real Canadian’ when instead of curling up on the couch with a blanket to watch a flick on a cold winter night, you’d rather put on a parka, head outside into the -20C night air and watch films projected onto ice.

* John Flock is now president of Peace Arch Entertainment Group, overseeing all operations of the Toronto production house. Flock is also head of its subsidiary Peace Arch L.A.

Broadcaster Bob McAdorey died Feb. 5 in Toronto after a long illness. He was 69.

Michael McEwen is president of Canadian Digital Television. Following is an edited version of the speech McEwen delivered at the Canadian Satellite Users Association’s annual conference, held Feb. 1-2 in Toronto.

Maybe certain broadcasters saw the writing on the wall. Maybe certain broadcasters realized that if they continue to let English-Canadian drama deteriorate as they had for the last five years, the federal authorities would wake up one day and ask what the hell is going on around here?

Toronto: It’s a strange move – to rename one’s company just as it’s hitting a high point. If business has been bad or, say, if there’d been PR trouble, it makes sense. (Case in point: SkyDome is now called Rogers Centre.) But Tapestry Pictures has been on something of a winning streak for the past couple of years, thanks to its multi-Gemini-winning Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the well-received MOW Prom Queen. Why would co-owners Mary Young Leckie and Heather Haldane rebrand? The pair unveiled their new name, Screen Door, at this month’s CFTPA Prime Time in Ottawa conference.

School of life

Lifetime MOW takes advantage of regional credit

Halifax: Paul Donovan recently completed principal photography on The Conclave, an ambitious MOW that takes place in Rome in 1458, five years after the fall of Constantinople to Islam. The ex-Salter Street principal executive produces with Studio Hamburg Produktion’s Sytze van der Laan.
The historical drama, written by Donovan, is based on a secret diary kept by Pope Pius II. It focuses on a young Spanish cardinal and future pope, Rodrigo Borgia, who lives in Rome at a time when the Spanish suffered considerable violence at the hands of Romans. When his uncle, Pope Calixtus III, dies, Borgia is locked in the Vatican with 18 other men who form the conclave and are charged with selecting the next pope.

Hockey history shoots in New Brunswick