Ontario’s ‘made for TV’ budget turned out to be a ‘to be continued’ cliffhanger late last month, when the province postponed its decision on proposed changes to the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit. The budget, delivered by Finance Minister Janet Ecker amid a storm of controversy to a studio audience at a Brampton, ON factory, made only one change to the province’s equity investment rules despite recent lobbying by the CTFPA and other groups for changes that include hiking the OFTTC by an additional 13%, up from 20%.

Alliance Atlantis Communications and Miramax Films have extended their long-term output distribution agreement through to Dec. 31, 2006.

Organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival this month announced plans to move the festival, and its many year-round events, to a new $120-million home in 2006. Construction is slated to begin next spring on Festival Centre, a five-storey theatre-and-condo complex in downtown Toronto and, with luck, the ribbon will be cut in time for the 31st TIFF.

While war in Iraq kept some Americans away and SARS fears kept the Japanese grounded at home, the French broadcasters were doing business at MIPTV 2003, held March 24-28 in Cannes, which netted a $200,000 deal for Toronto distributor Oasis International.

Stealing Time Editing is gearing up for expansion and a major surge in work volume after the relatively small Toronto post house was selected by Young & Rubicam over some of the city’s larger post facilities to be the primary post-production supplier on creative produced for the agency’s client Priszm Brandz.

Las Vegas: It is surely no coincidence that the Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and Bruce Springsteen’s Waiting on a Sunny Day greeted attendees of the opening address at the 2003 National Association of Broadcasters convention. Both songs reflect an optimism that good times lie ahead for the U.S. broadcast industry – and, by extension, Canada’s as well – if each sector does its part.

The Independent Production Fund has announced decisions for its February round of applications. Equity financing will go to 14 productions including Alliance Atlantis Communications’ The Eleventh Hour, Barna-Alper Productions’ Blue Murder and Degrassi: The Next Generation from Epitome Pictures. Funding was split evenly between English- and French-language productions.

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With literally the entire world watching, one of the more underrated candy brands is pulling off what may prove to be the most significant brand awareness campaign of the year. I’m speaking of course of Skittles.

Andrew Tolomizenko is corporate counsel for a large

In the March 3 issue, Martin Granger was included among a list of directors living in L.A. Granger does not live in L.A.; he is based out of New York.

It has been two or three years since the first personal video recorders rolled off the assembly lines and into the consumer electronics market. And they are – there can be little doubt – truly revolutionary machines. All store 30 hours or more of programming on massive hard drives. Viewers can pause and replay live TV. Time shifting, offered by Bell ExpressVu and others, picks up shows as they air in different time zones. And TiVO, available in the U.S. and U.K., not only remembers and records the shows you like – it also guesses, based on what you watch, what other shows you might like, and takes the liberty of recording those as well.

It’s been a while since Canadian studios have seen their cash-flush commercial clients with any regularity. The lavish days of yore have become a distant memory, and most studios have had to learn to adapt in order to stave off the icy clutches of economic Darwinism.

On The Spot went to some of the country’s most innovative production service companies and asked them to recall the one service assignment that stands out above all others.

Hot Docs, the biggest documentary film festival in North America, will be hosting its 10th anniversary April 25 to May 4 throughout Toronto’s trendy Little Italy and Annex neighborhoods.