With the Canadian fall spend at hand, broadcasters are lighting candles and praying that they’ll see just some of the manna that fell from heaven during the U.S. upfront.

CTV’S Canadian Idol drew more than two million viewers for its premiere episode on June 9. That’s a big number for a Canadian show under any circumstances, but given that CI, another international version of U.K. smash Pop Idol, went head to head with the first period of game seven of the Stanley Cup Final between the New Jersey Devils and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, it’s a near miracle it was even competitive. As it stands, game seven generated about 2.6 million viewers for CBC.

Montreal: Massive marketing campaigns on behalf of early summer Quebec releases are paying off big time.

Montreal: The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television – Quebec has announced private broadcasters Reseau TVA and TQS have accepted modifications to Prix Gemeaux regulations and will participate in this year’s competition. The gala broadcast is set for Nov. 23.

You’d never know it with the black cloud hanging over the Canadian production industry, but Canada has the fastest growing entertainment and media market in the world, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Over the last two years, the Canadian industry has ‘outpaced’ all of the other countries surveyed in PwC’s Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2003 – 2007.

The CFTPA elected a new board of directors at its AGM in Banff June 7.

* Cinar Corp. has appointed Richard Genest senior vice-president and chief financial officer. Genest has over 20 years experience in finance with large and publicly traded corporations, including Alcan, Primary Metal Group and Desjardins-Laurentian Financial Corp.

CHUM loves new anthology

Last issue, we reported on the lineups of CTV and Alliance Astlantis and CBC. In this issue, we feature what’s in store from Global/CH and CHUM/NewNets:

With the better part of two seasons under their collective belt, only one of Canada’s 40-plus digital channels has been kicked off the island. In fact, a couple of them are even occasionally outdrawing the analogs in some primetime slots.

One of the best things about the Banff TV festival is the lunches. Not because the food is good – although it occasionally is – but because guest speakers come and say some very interesting things. This as opposed to Banff breakfast sessions, where guest speakers may be saying interesting things, but I’m still in bed, if only in my mind. This year, the lunches were no different.

Bruiser Dolph Lundgren and director Sidney Furie are expected to wrap the four-week shoot of Direct Action – now underway in Hamilton, ON for GFT Entertainment – by the end of the month, and will soon hand the action feature over to editor Saul Pincus.
It is the second time GFT has paired Lundgren with the Toronto-born helmer, following last fall’s production of the low-budget punch-up Detention, also shot in Steeltown.