Asked how often Playback readers watch Canadian drama on TV, 17.65% responded very often, 40.34% claimed sometimes and an alarming 42.02% said never.

Adam Ostry, CEO of the Ontario Media Development Corporation and self-described ‘policy wonk,’ has decided not to renew his three-year term with the agency that ends May 17.

Under the new ownership of Corus Entertainment and with the goal of becoming the number-one-rated specialty channel in Canada, WTN is set to relaunch on April 15 with a new name and look, a Western feed and a commitment to license five new, original dramatic programs.

Vancouver: An American MOW producer once told me: ‘I can’t roll out of bed in Vancouver without making money.’

Montreal: Men With Brooms is rekindling Canadian moviemaking aspirations, scoring $1,040,000 in box office over its opening three-day, March 8-10 weekend. The film ranked fourth nationally, drawing a predominantly older 25-54, equally male-female skewed audience, according to AC Nielsen’s Entertainment Data Industries.

Montreal: Local distributors are highly critical of the Quebec government’s signing of a four-year distribution deal with the Motion Picture Association of America, claiming their advice has been totally ignored.

Montreal: Prominent individuals in the Canadian production industry are joining together to ensure an industry award is named in honor of Don Haig, who passed away at his Toronto home on Saturday, March 2 at the age of 69.

Vancouver: The stock market may be drawing sad faces for most entertainment companies, but that hasn’t dissuaded Delaney and Friends Cartoon Productions of Vancouver from going public.

* Leslie Sole has been appointed CEO, television, for Rogers Broadcasting. Sole has managed CFMT-TV since 1990 and has overseen the launch of Biography, TechTV and MSNBC.

Should Vision TV’s Lord Have Mercy get the green light from its funding sources, the new series will be the only true-to-form sitcom – three cameras, studio audiences and only a handful of sets – being produced in Canada.

Two years after leaving her post as CBC network program director, Phyllis Platt has several projects on the go at her new independent prodco, Platt Productions.
Combining her background in news and current affairs with her experience in arts and entertainment, Platt is positioning her company as a production partner to companies with an existing infrastructure, focusing on reality-based programming.
Platt has five MOWs in development, one of which is up for the next round of CTF financing. The tentatively titled Poisoned Waters, a coproduction with Toronto’s Barna-Alper Productions and Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures, is a drama mirroring recent contaminated water incidents in Walkerton, ON and North Battleford, SK.

Producers Paul Pope of Pope Productions in St. John’s isn’t resting on the laurels of his feature film Rare Birds, which recently opened in Canadian theatres. He is currently in development on a major television project with the CBC about Gander, NF during World War II.
The six-hour dramatic miniseries takes place during the war when the Royal Canadian Air Force set up camp in Gander in order to fly out from one of Canada’s eastern-most points. ‘They’d never flown anyone across [the Atlantic] in the winter,’ says Pope. ‘The Air Force thought it was a suicide idea. Then, months later when it’s a huge success, the same people [who were opposed to the base] wanted to take it over and take credit for it. It’s [about] pure front-line inventiveness, determination and guts, and a lot of lives taken.’