TV, eh?

From a media release:

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television is pleased to announce the nominations for the 24th Annual Gemini Awards, recognizing the year’s best in Canadian English-language television. The 2009 Broadcast Gala will take place on Saturday November 14th in Calgary, Alberta and will be broadcast live on Global and Showcase.

The drama Flashpoint leads the 2009 Gemini Awards nominations with a record 19 nominations, followed by The Tudors with 11 nominations. Being Erica, Diamonds, Less Than Kind, and The Border each received 9 nominations.

Click here for more information and a full list of nominees.

Canadian shows currently on iTunes:

6TEEN

Air Farce

Being Erica

The Border

Chilly Beach

Corner Gas

Degrassi: TNG

Dragons’ Den

Flashpoint

Heartland

Instant Star

jPod

The Jon Dore Television Show

Life’s a Zoo

Little Mosque on the Prairie

The Listener

No Opportunity Wasted

Odd Job Jack

Rick Mercer

Robson Arms

Sophie

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate SG-1

Stargate Universe

Stratusphere

This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Total Drama Action

Total Drama Island

The Tudors

The Week The Women Went

Wild Roses

This is not likely an exhaustive list so let me know if I’m missing any Canadian shows that are currently on iTunes:

6TEEN

Air Farce

Being Erica

The Border

Chilly Beach

Corner Gas

Degrassi: TNG

Dragon’s Den

Flashpoint

Heartland

Instant Star

jPod

The Jon Dore Television Show

Life’s a Zoo

Little Mosque on the Prairie

The Listener

No Opportunity Wasted

Odd Job Jack

Rick Mercer

Robson Arms

Sophie

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate SG-1

Stargate Universe

Stratusphere

This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Total Drama Action

Total Drama Island

The Tudors

The Week The Women Went

Wild Roses

From a media release:

The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) announces the 2009 DGC Awards nominations. Comedian Shaun Majumder will host the annual gala on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto. See nominees here.

From Kristin Brzoznowski of World Screen:

• Echo Bridge Lands Broadcast Deals for Teen Series
  ‘Echo Bridge Entertainment has closed a slate of agreements for two teen series from its Alliance Atlantis Distribution catalogue: Degrassi: The Next Generation and Instant Star.” Read more.

From a media release:

INTERNATIONAL JURY SELECTS FOUR OUTSTANDING CANADIAN PROGRAMS FOR YOUTHS AND FAMILIES AS FINALISTS FOR THE $50,000 SHAW ROCKET PRIZE

The 2009 Shaw Rocket Prize recognises this year’s best Canadian television programming targeted to youths (13-17) and families.

Jury members Adina Pitt, Vice President, Content Acquisitions and Co-Productions, Cartoon Network and Boomerang; Bob Higgins, Head of Creative, W!LDBRAIN; Deirdre Brennan, Director of Programming, Nickelodeon Australia; and Geoffrey Goodwin, Head of BBC Switch, made the announcement at a reception held today during the 10th Annual KidScreen Summit in New York City.

(more…)

From Glen Schaefer of The Province:

• Geminis come calling for local actors
  “Two of the three winning Vancouver actresses weren’t in Toronto last week when their names were called at the Gemini awards for Canadian TV. And that’s not a bad thing — singer-actress Alexz Johnson (best actress in a children’s series for Instant Star) was criss-crossing North America as her recording career heats up, and Katharine Isabelle (best supporting actress in a miniseries, The Englishman’s Boy) was getting shot in a horror movie.” Read more.

From Glen Schaefer of The Province:

• Television awards tuned into the city
  “Actors Ben Ratner and Gabrielle Miller hosted a reception at the Sutton Place Hotel last night for their B.C. show-business peers nominated at this year’s Gemini Canadian television awards.” Read more.

From CTV:

Sunday, Aug. 31 at 7 pm ET
Series Finale

Jude is offered a once-in-a-lifetime recording contract in London, England. At the same time, Jude and Tommy are falling for each other all over again. Tommy offers to move to London with her and make their relationship legit.

From Ben Rayner of the Toronto Star:

• Ben Rayner’s Reasons to Live
  “Instant Star. Gah! I hate myself for it, but CTV’s Idol-themed teen melodrama has a Melrose-like addiction factor of 10. Where once it was just bad, Instant Star’s grossly inaccurate “behind the scenes” portrayal of the music industry is now sufficiently dreadful after four seasons to have transcended dreadful. Plus, Jude looks totally smokin’ with that new hairdo.” Read more.

From the Toronto Star:

• TV tonight: Five worth watching
  “The final season of teen music drama Instant Star is quietly underway this month; tonight, Jude (Alex Johnson) gets shut out of Jamie and Paegan’s party. (CTV at 7)” Read more.

From Glen Schaefer of The Province:

• It’s all according to Alexz’s script
  “She played an instant star on TV, but singer-actor Alexz Johnson says she decided to take her time when it came to her own musical ambitions.” Read more.

From a media release:

About Instant Star

* Season 4 premiere
* Sundays at 7 p.m. beginning June 8

Three new rising stars join the cast of Instant Star this season. Kyle Riabko, who recently landed the lead role in the Tony award winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening, stars as this year’s Instant Star winner, Milo; Cassie Steele (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as Blu, the sultry yet sophisticated singer who is bringing her heat to the stage in this year’s Instant Star competition; and Tatiana Maslany (Sabbatical, Flash of Genius) as Zeppelin, the awkward, adorkable indie girl teetering on the edge of womanhood. In the fourth season of CTV’s original drama series, Instant Star, Jude (Alexz Johnson) is on her way to being an adult and will be facing adult-sized problems. Fortunately for her, Jude has Tommy Quincy (Tim Rozon) by her side, but being in a serious relationship with your record producer sure comes with its own set of pitfalls. This year Jude has earned the freedom to be her own girl – woman that is. Jude’s biggest challenge will be discovering who she is, and what her real music is, while the rock and roll world takes her on a wild ride. Returning cast regulars are Alexz Johnson as Jude; Tim Rozon as Tommy; Laura Vandervoort, (who recently landed the role of Supergirl in Smallville), as Sadie; Kristopher Turner as Jamie; Tyler Kyte as Spiederman; Mark Taylor as Kwest; Wes “Maestro” Williams as Darius; Craig Warnock as Paegan Smith; and Cory Lee as Karma.

In the fourth season premiere “Your Time is Gonna Come” (Sunday, June 8 at 7 p.m. ET), Jude’s finally chosen Tommy as the guy she wants to be with, but her dreams of first-time sex-on-the-beach are dashed when Darius wrangles Jude and Tommy back into the studio of G Major. And to make matters worse, she’s sideswiped by one reminder after another that Tommy’s been around the block. Meanwhile, newlyweds Karma and Spiederman find themselves stars of their own reality show, prepping a lavish redo of their wedding vows for the cameras.

Episodes from Season 4 will also be made available the day after broadcast on iTunes, joining other original CTV programs including Degrassi: The Next Generation, Corner Gas and Robson Arms. Instant Star also extends its brand with 11 new companion “webisodes” to be available at CTV.ca; once again, Season 4 of Instant Star will be supported with a compilation CD set for release this summer; and the Instant Star website at instantstar.ctv.ca takes viewers beyond the television screen and into the world of Jude Harrison.

Instant Star recently won Bronze at the Telly Awards for the webisode “I Just Wanted You Love.” The series was also nominated for Best Performance in a Children’s or Youth Program Series (Alexz Johnson) at the 22nd Annual Gemini Awards and won Outstanding Team Achievement in a TV Series – Family at the 2007 Directors Guild of Canada Awards.

From Rob Salem of the Toronto Star:

• Silver lining on a grey summer: Good Canadian pickings are slim as Global, CTV buy American schlock
  “This summer, most of the American networks will typically pad their schedules with half-baked reality formats, warmed-over reruns and burned-off episodes of mid-season series that did not otherwise make it onto the air. So once again, it falls to our own commercial networks – the CBC is, appropriately enough, a given – to come up with at least a couple of worthy homegrown alternatives.” Read more.

From a media release:

• Summer’s No.1 Series Canadian Idol Returns for Sixth Season June 3
• New Canadian Drama Series Flashpoint Premieres July 11 on CTV & CBS along with new seasons of Canadian series Instant Star, Comedy Now! and Comedy Inc.

Sundays: Instant Star
Mondays: Canadian Idol
Tuesdays: Canadian Idol
Fridays: Flashpoint
Saturdays: Comedy Now!, Comedy Inc.

(more…)

From Alyssa Luckhurst of andPOP:

• ‘Instant Star’ Wrapping Up At End Of Season
  “Instant Star will take its final curtain call at the end of Season 4. Stephen Stohn, one of the show’s executive producers, made the announcement on the CTV.ca message boards, saying that it was the best move for the show.” Read more.

From a CTV media release:

Hit programming from CTV and its specialty channels The Comedy Network and MTV are now available from the iTunes Store in Canada (www.itunes.ca). iTunes becomes the next digital platform for CTV’s original Canadian series, in addition to The CTV Broadband Network and Rogers’ CTV on Demand service. The iTunes deal represents for CTV yet another opportunity for viewers to catch up to episodes already broadcast on CTV.

CTV programs for purchase include Canada’s most-watched comedy series, Corner Gas, international hit Degrassi: The Next Generation, critically-acclaimed series Robson Arms and Gemini Award winner Instant Star.

“I’m very excited about Corner Gas being on iTunes,” said Brent Butt, star of Corner Gas. “Initially I was excited because I thought it meant Corner Gas was going to be turned into a musical. But it turns out I was confused. The show will be available on iTunes just the way we made it, which is also awesome.”

iTunes’ CTV content will allow viewers to catch up to previously-aired episodes and purchase just-broadcast episodes the day after their television premieres:

CTV

• Corner Gas: previously-aired episodes from Season 4 and the current Season 5 are available today. New episodes from Season 5 will be available the day following their television premiere on The Comedy Network.
• Robson Arms: the complete second season is available immediately. New episodes from Season 3 will be available the day following their television premiere on CTV.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation: the complete sixth season is available immediately. New episodes from Season 7 will be available the day following their television premiere.
• Instant Star: the complete third season is available immediately. New episodes from Season 4 will be available the day following their television premiere on CTV.

From a media release:

… Finally, CTV also revealed today its slate of seven original Canadian movies and mini-series set to premiere in 2008, including the world premiere of Mayerthorpe, the intense dramatization of the 2005 RCMP tragedy. …

Also returning in 2008 with fresh, completed episodes are … Corner Gas, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Robson Arms and Instant
Star.

CTV also announced today its slate of Canadian movies and mini-series
scheduled to premiere in 2008. They include: Mayerthorpe, Elijah, She Drives Me Crazy, Sticks and Stones, The Terrorist Next Door, Who Named the Knife and the two-part, four-hour mini-series event Would Be Kings.

Additional scheduling details and premiere dates will be announced soon.

From Bruce DeMara of the Toronto Star:

• Writers’ strike may help the CBC
  “‘Who’d have thought that we would have benefited from a strike – someone else’s strike?’ Kirstine Layfield, the CBC’s executive director of network programming, said yesterday at the public broadcaster’s first winter season launch event.” Read more.

Guy Dixon of the Globe and Mail presents more speculation on what a WGA strike could mean to the Canadian television (and film) industry:

• Writers’ strike good and bad news for Canada
  “‘No doubt that a few empty slots in the U.S. would bode well for us and others in the Canadian production landscape with decent programming to sell,’ said Mary Darling, executive producer of Little Mosque.” Read more.