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The Small Screen: Giving to your favorite broadcast charity
I am having a head-scratching bit of déjà vu here. Wasn’t it just over a year ago that the conventional networks were hitting up the CRTC for fee-for-carriage? And here we are again; every hotel suite in Ottawa-Gatineau filled, early morning and early evening, with the tapping of laptops, the buzzing of BlackBerrys, and the swish of dress-shirts coming on and off amid hangovers current and anticipated.
ShowCanada previews tomorrow’s multiplex
This year, ShowCanada will do more than just tease Canadian exhibitors with coming movies and trailers from the major studios and indie Canadian distributors.
Quebec producers cut out red tape
MONTREAl: From the makers of hit teen movie A vos marques…party! to the cheeky indie flick Bluff, more Quebec producers are bringing their projects to life without help from SODEC and Telefilm Canada, by cutting costs and pulling in extra investors in a bid to keep their projects fresh.
Tudors, Motor City nab cinematography awards
The filmmakers’ ‘bold choices’ for the look and feel of the Citytv series Across the River to Motor City paid off for DOP David Greene, who picked up the prize for TV drama at the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards, held March 29 in Toronto.
The Burning Question
Consumers cheered and broadcasters shuddered upon hearing that the CRTC will, at this month’s BDU hearings, consider letting the likes of HBO, ESPN and Nickelodeon into Canada – doing away with the genre protections that help keep Canadians in business. And so we ask the uncomfortable question:
People
• Chris Gordon is now president of CTVglobemedia’s radio division. He was most recently VP and GM for CHUM radio stations and held the same position at A-Channel Ottawa.
Sold!
• SOAPnet has picked up season one of MVP, and plans to put the cancelled hockey drama on June 19. The Disney-owned cable channel broadcasts current and past soap operas to about 41 million American homes. The deal was brokered by execs at Toronto’s Screen Door and Zac Reeder of L.A.-based Circus Road Films.
The sharks encircle Alliance Films
Alliance Films’ loss of the New Line Cinema output deal has thrown the Canadian indie movie distribution sector into a frenzy.
Genre protection upholds the Broadcasting Act
The following article was submitted to Playback by a group of independent broadcast executives, including: Joseph Chan, president, Fairchild Media Group; Martha Fusca, president and CEO, Stornoway Communications; Suzanne Gouin, president and GM, TV5 Québec Canada; Jean LaRose, CEO, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network; Slava Levin, president, Ethnic Channels Group; Cal Millar, VP and GM, Channel Zero; and Bill Roberts, president and CEO, S-Vox
Interactives take dim view of Cancon at ICE08
Replace those tax-credit applications on your desk with maps of Atlanta and San Francisco if you want to survive and thrive in the emerging digital content world, Canadian producers attending last month’s ICE08 conference were told.
More money for interactive media
The CRTC has given the interactive media sector a shot in the arm, earmarking for it $10.5 million of the benefits package associated with the buyout of BCE by a consortium including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and U.S. partners.
Writers hand awards to Gas, Motor City
Outgoing sitcom takes another win at Canadian Screenwriting Awards, best one-hour goes to short-run CHUM series by Wertheimer and McGrath
RDS tops CBC in playoff coverage
French-language sports specialty scores its highest ratings ever for first-round game featuring the Montreal Canadiens. Global grows PGA Masters audience
Canwest gets talent manager
Entertainment and media consultant PJ Tarasuk hired to manage and boost Canwest’s homegrown stars
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