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TV
Santa came early for CanWest
Just as Playback staff members were wrapping up for another annum – some with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads – came word that the CRTC had approved the acquisition of Alliance Atlantis Communications’ specialty channels by CanWest Global and Goldman Sachs, with few additional requirements to be met.
CBC, CTV finally jump on iTunes bandwagon
Two of the country’s big three broadcasters have found a home on iTunes, which has added programming from CBC, CTV and its partners to the Canadian version of the online music store – offering downloadable versions of Little Mosque on the Prairie, Corner Gas and South Park, among others.
Meet Goldman Sachs
When the CRTC gave the green light on Dec. 20 to the purchase of Alliance Atlantis Communications by CanWest Global Communications and New York-based investment firm GS Capital Partners, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs & Co., it was only the latest example in a buying spree of Canadian businesses involving foreign private-equity firms, with media companies prominent on their shopping lists.
Done deal: CanWest gets green light from Gatineau
OTTAWA-GATINEAU: The CRTC gave CanWest Global Communications an early Christmas present Dec. 20, finding no problems with the foreign investment at play in approving the broadcaster’s $2.3-billion acquisition of Alliance Atlantis Communications. But less than an hour after the CRTC released its decision, the unions were talking appeal.
Charge premium prices for U.S. networks
Barry Kiefl is the president of Canadian Media Research, based in Ottawa
Ontario upping tax credits to 35% for locals, 25% for Hollywood
Santa dropped in early for Ontario’s beleaguered film and TV production sector with news that Queen’s Park is to hike tax credits for foreign and local producers shooting in the province over the next three years.
Producers rattled by TQS troubles
MONTREAL: Quebec producers are lamenting the possible demise of TQS, the black sheep of the province’s three networks that draws audiences to its homegrown programming that English-Canadian TV makers would die for.
The Burning Question
How much singing and dancing can audiences stand? Prepare to find out as CTV and CanWest roll out mid-season schedules light on scripts and heavy on reality, while CBC makes its move with Cancon dramas like jPod and The Border. All of which raises the question:
Sold!
• Image Entertainment re-upped its output deal with Entertainment One and its subsidiaries, expanding their current deal to more than 3,000 titles running until 2012. Entertainment One will hold the theatrical, home, TV and digital rights for Image titles and its subsidiaries, including horror flick Stuck and My Name Is Bruce with Bruce Campbell.
Big-budget stop-motion wrapping in B.C.
Infinity Features (Capote) has hooked up with Perfect Circle Productions (The Timekeeper) to make Canada’s first stop-motion animated feature film, the $10-million Edison and Leo.
How Jimmy escaped hell
Breakthrough Animation has gone into production on the first season of its new animated comedy series Jimmy Two Shoes, which the Toronto prodco is producing in collaboration with Teletoon and Jetix Europe. But they’ve dropped that whole ‘little boy in hell’ idea.
Natali goes back to the future with Splice
The spectre of genetic experimentation forms the crux of Vincenzo Natali’s new film Splice, currently shooting in Toronto.
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