Vancouver: Overall attendance at NATPE this month in Las Vegas is down about 40% from last year, but Canada’s participation has more than doubled.
According to Beth Braen, senior VP of marketing for the trade show, running Jan. 21-24, exhibiting companies are down to 535 from 800 last year and overall attendance will be about 12,000 compared to 20,000 a year ago.
The effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the consolidation of the television industry have contributed to the lower participation, she explains. Braen insists, however, that while NATPE’s long-term viability has been questioned in the media and former exhibitors are organizing a concurrent event at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, the 39-year-old market is not going away.

By the old broadcast model, the digital rollout appears to be in early trouble as 50-odd channels vie for a miniscule slice of viewers.
But many of those behind the new channels are quick to point out the broadcast model for digitals is much closer to magazine or radio. Viewed in that light, the numbers may not be nearly so bad.
Either way, with a four-month free preview period ended Jan. 7, Canadian broadcasters will have their work cut out for them in the coming months.

Despite his international success creeping out audiences for more than a quarter century, David Cronenberg remains fiercely independent, grossly perverse and as resolved as ever to continue shooting in Canada. Starting with 1975’s Shivers, almost every foot of film the director has shot has been locally.

In an anticipated move that reflects its commitment to reduce its primetime production volume and augment its broadcasting division, Alliance Atlantis has laid off 80 employees and consolidated its content production and distribution activities, creating the new Entertainment Group, headed up by Peter Sussman. The layoffs are expected to reduce annual operating costs by $7 million.
Calling the cutbacks ‘a stand-alone action,’ Michael MacMillan, AAC chairman and CEO, says, ‘This isn’t anything to do with Sept. 11 or the economic situation.’

In my last editorial I heralded 2002 as the year of the coproduction, and while two weeks later I maintain that the year ahead will yield a throng of innovative and strategic relationships among Canadian producers and with the international production community, I think it could be said in the same breath that 2002 is the year of integration for Canadian media giants.

Kunuk wins Jutra Award

Canada has long been known as a hot bed for comedic talent. This well-deserved reputation can be attributed in no small part to the pioneering efforts of the comedy team Wayne and Shuster. Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster first teamed in high school and developed into one of Canada’s most influential comedy teams. They worked together for 56 years until Wayne’s death in 1990.

Vancouver: On Jan. 11, California’s Governor Gray Davis injected new life into the ongoing runaway production controversy by floating a proposal for a new labor-based tax incentive for lower-budget California productions. At the same time, the Film and Television Action Committee, which has lobbied against runaway productions, temporarily withdrew its petition filed late last year calling for countervailing duties on U.S. shows shot in Canada with Canadian tax credits.

Vancouver: Mystery continues to shroud the paid suspension of the B.C. Film Commission’s director and marketing manager while the government ministry investigating their ‘managerial procedures’ is weeks from clearing the air.

Toronto-headquartered business development company Cameron Thomson Group has opened a production arm called Cameron Thomson Entertainment and inked a deal with Italy’s Scala Group to develop a half dozen art-based TV series.

Vancouver F/X shop Image Engine Design has designed and animated a revolutionary 3D CG ‘actor’ for the season finale of MGM’s Stargate SG-1. The character, an alien named Thor with a rubbery epidermis and protruding cranium, had previously appeared on the series, having been shot as a puppet. The puppet had aged and Image Engine approached the producers of the locally shooting sci-fi series to digitally construct a new Thor that would allow the character a greater range of behavior.

* As part of Cinar Corp.’s restructuring program, the Montreal house has brought back Louis Fournier as head of distribution.