8 p.m., Oct. 12, 1988. Jay Switzer, then-Citytv program manager, is at home in front of his television set, about to watch history in the making.

Fox News is coming to Canada and broadcasters are not amused – least of all CTV, which is crying foul over the CRTC’s recent decision to allow the news outlet into Canada as a digital channel, arguing that its own cable news channel can’t compete with the U.S. giant.

CBC’s coverage of the Nov. 21 Grey Cup match between the Toronto Argonauts and the B.C. Lions drew an average four million viewers, making it the second most-watched Grey Cup game in the last 10 years, with audiences peaking at 4.5 million in the game’s last half-hour. This marks a 4% audience increase over last year’s Grey Cup match (Edmonton Eskimos vs. Montreal Alouettes), which attracted an average 3.85 million viewers.

Canada’s premier television event is getting a facelift. Robert Montgomery, CEO of the Banff Television Festival, says producers and broadcasters can expect a more integrated business focus, with increased pitching opportunities, one-on-one sessions, greater participation from emerging talent, and additional screenings for Banff 2005.

Hands up, everyone who grew up getting their news from Citytv’s anchor babes trolling the newsroom and Chippendale boys driving round Toronto in branded SUVs with handheld cameras to capture what was hip, hot and happening in Toronto.

The Canadian Film Centre will receive a $3-million donation from Vancouver-based telecommunications company TELUS Corp., a sum outgoing executive director Wayne Clarkson described at a press conference as the ‘largest single gift we’ve ever received.’

Broadcasting pioneer and publisher Daniel Iannuzzi passed away from a heart attack on Nov. 20 in Rome. Founder of the multilingual station CFMT-TV in Toronto, and an executive at Citytv in the 1970s, he was best known as a champion of multiculturalism. A third-generation Italian-Canadian, Iannuzzi was born in Montreal in 1934, and lived in Toronto for 50 years. In 1954, he founded Corriere Canadese, a newspaper catering to the Italian community.

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In the Nov. 22, issue of Playback, Frantic Films CEO and executive producer Jamie Brown was quoted saying ‘in hindsight it makes sense’ that Global TV fired Loren Mawhinney and Doug Hoover following the net’s struggles over the last two years. In the full context of the quote, Brown used a corporate analogy to illustrate that when a stock performs poorly, managers often take the fall even if it is not their fault. He was not insinuating that the fault lies with either Mawhinney or Hoover.

Ken Ferguson is president of Toronto Film Studios and one of the leading advocates for film and TV production in Ontario. TFS was selected by TEDCO, a city-owned agency, to build the new Film/Media Complex in Toronto’s Port Lands, due to open in 2006.

OK. So it wasn’t Slawko Klymkiw. But it’s not like anyone else crystal-balled who the new executive director of Telefilm was going to be.

Toronto: It’s not every day you see a bear trying to have sex with a cheetah – on her desk. And, until recently, a pack of randy, anthropomorphized cartoon animals was probably the last sort of thing you’d expect to see from Toronto’s Associated Producers – a prodco that made its name in the ’90s by turning out high-end documentaries on such not-at-all sexy subjects as biblical history (The Exodus Decoded) and killer viruses (The Plague Monkeys).