✖
TV
The perils of product placement
I don’t dislike brands. But there are a few forms of marketing that irritate me. Top of the list is cold calling from companies when I’m eating my dinner – closely followed by those annoying pop-up ads that scroll down across the screen just as I’m about to click my cursor on something else. Other irritants are brands in the classroom, confusing product variants and checkout assistants who offer me a half-price chocolate orange when I’m buying a newspaper.
Breaking bread with rookie Copper scribe Morwyn Brebner
A little bit of luck, a great idea and a whole lotta talent takes playwright to the zenith of network TV
Kids in the Hall: Death becomes them
Question: Fifteen years after their famed series and famously troubled movie, have the Kids in the Hall learned anything? Answer: Yes. When shooting in North Bay, beware of moose
Haiti specials raise $40 million
Joint effort by the big three networks hailed a success. Over 2.4 million tune in, leading into U.S. telethon
PPM effect swells fall ratings
Parent Canwest Global Communications may be embattled and U.S. network influence waning, yet Global Television said it achieved its best fall showing in a half-decade as 2009 drew to a close. Helped by new PPM measurement, Global saw its primetime audiences rise 48% in fall 2009, compared to fall 2008, according to BBM Canada numbers.
TSN breaks recordswith World Juniors
The new year started out with a bang on TSN, which generated an eye-popping 5.3 million viewers for the highly anticipated Canada/U.S. final in the IIHF World Junior Championships.
Kids hit one million
The Kids in the Hall saw boffo numbers for their return to television 15 years after their sketch comedy series ended on CBC.
Skogland to shoot prison drama
Kari Skogland has returned to familiar terrain for her first feature after Fifty Dead Men Walking – Miracle Pictures’ Prisoner of Tehran, a politically charged love story that plays out in a notorious Iranian prison. Skogland, kept busy lately directing TV series like The Listener and Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, will direct the picture based on Marina Nemat’s best-selling 2007 memoir of the same name.
Cancer comedy set for B.C.
Vancouver is set to host Seth Rogen’s serio-comic cancer movie, which is back on track after switching directors in November. The project – untitled, though known as I’m With Cancer – will shoot in Vancouver starting next month for Mandate Pictures.
New Thing coming to Toronto
Pinewood Toronto Studios will host the prequel to John Carpenter’s cult classic The Thing, which is set to shoot under director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. for Universal Pictures. A spokesperson at Universal says the sci-fi horror will start shooting at the former Filmport in March, staying until June.
Earnings up at Astral
A TV ad rebound and guaranteed subscriber fees have been good to Astral Media. The Montreal-based broadcaster posted first-quarter earnings up sharply at $64.6 million, against a profit of $39.6 million in 2008, as it secured an accounting gain of $8.4 million from a change in future tax rates and a reversal of $11.6 million in Part II fee accruals.
CEP takes a swing at Rogers, CRTC
Union calls for hearing into news cuts. ‘No such authority,’ says regulator
The definitive CDN broadcast and production resource.Over 5,000 company listings!
