In 1979, Montreal copywriter Alvin Wasserman headed west to Vancouver to further his career in advertising. More than two decades later, as the president and creative director of Wasserman & Partners, he sees major advertisers leaving the West Coast market despite its long-standing reputation for strong creative.

Vancouver: Canadian broadcasters sacrificed about $3 million in lost ad revenue to focus their energies on covering the catastrophic terrorist attacks in the U.S. Sept. 11.
That tally, derived from industry analyst estimates, is just 0.1% of the total Canadian television advertising pie of about $2.4 billion in national and retail sales annually.
The CBC main channel and CBC Newsworld, for example, offered commercial-free, ‘wall-to-wall’ coverage of the tragedy and the ensuing investigations for 43 hours. Anchor Peter Mansbridge was on air for 16 hours the first day and 12 hours the next.

Montreal: Survey results from a dozen Canadian production and export companies point to a huge volume of program sales, presales and coproduction business set for this year’s MIPCOM. The big international television market, which runs Oct. 8-12 in Cannes, France, has emerged for many Canadians as the most important annual get-together, arguably outdistancing MIP-TV and certainly NATPE.
Everyone has all kinds of pressing business, but the problem is security, more specifically the lack of it, and the unknowns surrounding the anticipated response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Halifax: The Atlantic Film Festival’s executive director Gregor Ash and festival director Lia Rinaldo had a lot of soul searching to do before deciding to go on with the 21st AFF.
They were expected to kick off the festivities three days after Sept. 11, the events of which no longer need description. They decided to carry on, running Sept. 14-22 in Halifax, despite irregular air traffic, undeliverable film prints and cancellations by delegates afraid to travel, which in turn shut down many scheduled Industry Series workshops, the Strategic Partners conference and other events.

Sibling rivalry will dominate this year’s Gemini Awards, with multiple nominations from the same networks, the same production companies and the same shows. CBC and CBC Newsworld scored 156 nominations, while CTV and its speciality networks scored 99 nominations, 81 of those for the CTV Network. Global Television scored 34 nods and Chum Television is up for seven.
CTV’s Nuremberg, from Alliance Atlantis, leads the overall Gemini nominations with 12. It will face off in the best dramatic miniseries category against CTV’s Haven (with seven nominations overall), also from AAC, and CBC’s Revenge of the Land. Haven is about an American journalist fighting to save Jews during the Holocaust, while Nuremberg is about the post-WWII war crimes trials. Revenge of the Land is set on the Canadian Prairies at the turn of the century.

Vancouver: The loss of at least one drama series, a softening international market, the lack of U.S. business partners, a breach of a loan covenant and the continuing malaise of public markets contribute to today’s difficult times at Peace Arch Entertainment, says its CEO Juliet Jones.
At the end of September, Class A and B shares of the Vancouver company traded at, respectively, $2 per share and $2.25 per share – at or pennies above the year lows. The year highs are $5.50 per share and $5.40 per share, respectively.
Investors responded negatively to the third-quarter results that showed earnings off by nearly $1.2 million compared to Q3 in fiscal 2000.

In a formal letter of complaint to the CRTC, PrideVision TV is alleging that Shaw Communications is discriminating against the diginet. The Category 1 gay-themed service, owned by Headline Media Group, has also asked subscribers who want the channel at the end of the current free preview to sign up with a company other than Shaw Cable or Star Choice.
The complaint specifically alleges Shaw has placed a number of ‘secondary trap’ requirements to any viewer wanting to sample the channel, as opposed to the open preview under which all the other diginets are being offered.

Despite Canada’s low dollar, quality crews and renowned tax-credit incentives for foreign moviemakers, the appetite of U.S. studios to shoot on Canadian soil may be restrained by Finance Minister Paul Martin’s proposal to eliminate Canadian tax shelters once and for all.
On Sept. 18, Martin tabled a ways and means motion in the House of Commons to amend a loophole in the Income Tax Act’s matchable expenditure rule, which would effectively eliminate the possibility for Canadian taxpayers to deduct more than the amount of revenue they invest in a studio film.

James Hyslop’s directing encompasses both commercial and documentary work – two disciplines that he says inform one another, allowing him to tell stories and hone his craft. Previously represented by Toronto’s Angel Films, Hyslop secured a new representation deal with Toronto-based Bedlam Films after Angel merged with Generator in September. At Bedlam, Hyslop expects to continue to build on his body of work as a storyteller in both short and long forms.

Veteran producer Laszlo Barna, this year alone, has garnered 30 Gemini Award nominations, including 10 for Da Vinci’s Inquest and 10 for Blue Murder.
Those were the good old days – but you never realize these things at the time. All I could focus on then was that none of my shows were nominated for a Gemini. Self-pityingly, it seemed to me that everyone else had a reason to go to the live broadcast and awards dinner, everyone but me.
I tried various rationales to make myself feel better: the Geminis were fixed; they had a secret rule that only one Hungarian could be nominated per season and Robert Lantos was clearly unbeatable, forever. I told myself the broadcast sucked; the wrong program always won; the juries were made up of drunkards and drug addicts. But the fact was that none of these excuses made me feel any better – until I found the perfect Outsiders Retribution – gate crashing.

It’s a perplexing challenge as a trade publication for the Canadian film and television industry to figure out our role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 tragedy that, at the very least, has served to undermine the false sense of security that has fundamentally defined, not just American, but Western culture.

In lieu of the Toronto International Film Festival’s customary awards brunch marking the end of the 10-day extravaganza, a press conference was held wherein festival director Piers Handling thanked the industry for its support after TIFF had adjusted its program out of respect for the catastrophe in the U.S.

CBC’s legendary Mr. Dressup, Ernie Coombs, passed away Sept. 18 after a long and respected career as a children’s entertainer. Coombs, who retired in 1996 after 31 years on the air, including 4,000 episodes of Mr. Dressup, was a favorite performer for generations of Canadian children.

* Susan Bower, former COO at Vision TV’s group of channels, has been appointed to the new position of executive director of policy, research and strategic development.