Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 34

BEST COPY AVAILABLE D4 The Edmonton ournal, Sunday. March 1, 1932 Television CABLE TELEVISION Saturday's awards Th Canadian Press Fee increases would allow Newsworld to reach potential Cable lobby still opposed to compulsory specialty service discretionary tier packages, not BILL ANDERSON The Canadian Press lorced on consumers. Association spokesman Eliza beth Roscoe says the cable industry has adopted this stance for all Canadian specialty chan nels tied to mandatory carnage Ralph Benmurgul and Cynthia Data arc hosts of the 6th annual Gemini Awards honoring icellenca In Canadian television Program or Mini-Series Graeme Campbell. Journey Into Darkness The Bruce Curtis Story. Best Direction in an Informa tion or Documentary Program or Toronto Here are winners of the 1992 Gemini Awards announced Saturday by the Academy of Canadian Onema and Television: Best Dramatic Mini-Series Young Catherine.

Best Short Dramatic Program Next Door. Best Documentary Series The Nature of Things. Best Light Information Si ries The New Music. Best Variety Program Kurt Browning: Tall in the Saddle. Best Variety Series The Tommy Hunter Show.

Best Performing Arts Program Letter From Wingfield Farm. Best Animated Program or Series Babar. Best Children's Program or Series The Garden. Best Youth Program or Series Lost in the Barrens. Best Sports Program or Series Hockey Night in Canada, 1991 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Best Performance by an Actor in Supporting Role Kenneth Welsh, Journey Into Darkness: The Bruce Curtis Story. Best Performance by an Actress in Supporting Role Sarah Polley, Lantern HilL Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series Bernard Behrens, Saying Goodbye: A Home Alone. Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series Brenda Bazinet, Saying Goodbye: A Grief Shared. Series John walker. The Hand of Stalin.

Leningradskaya. Best Direction in a Variety or Performing Arts Program or Series Barbara Willis Sweete, Adrian Marthaler, Prokofiev by Two. Best Writing in a Dramatic Series Wayne Gngsby, bNG, Best Guest Performance in a Series by an Actor or Actress Michelle St. John, ENG. A Long Way From Hopeful Best Performance in a Comedy Program or Series Sandra Shamas, Adrienne Oarkson Presents.

Sandra Shamas: Spitting Nickels. Best Performance in a Performing Arts Program or Series Diana Leblanc, Legacy: La Mai son Suspendue. Best Overall Broadcast Journalist Pamela Wallin, CI News. Best Reportage Joe Schlesinger, The National. The Gulf War.

Best Special Event Coverage CBC-TV News Special, Oka: The Standoff Ends. Best Host in a Light Information, Variety or Performing Arts Program or Series David Suzuki, The Nature Connection. Best Direction in a Dramatic "We 're not empire-building here. We don't want to be CNN. We just want to give Canadians a service that covers this country as welt as CNN covers the world." Newsworld head Michael Harrla posed fee increase would lift annual Newsworld revenues by about $19 million for 1992 93.

If Newsworld gets the money the CRTC will likely release its decision in June or July the channel proposes a number of improvements over the next seven years. Among them: More live coverage. More regional coverage. More programs from independent producers. Six new weekly series.

Three new foreign bureaus The Newsworld application is being supported by the lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, which argues in a submission to the CRTC that Newsworld "has become an essential and prized element of our national broadcasting system." At the other end of the spectrum in what the Friends call "powerful" and "self-serving" interests are the cable companies. The Canadian Cable Television Association says it supports Newsworld's licence renewal but will be recommending that the fee increase be denied. The cable lobby one of more than 1,500 groups or people to file comments on News-world is also recommending that the channel be sold only in Seeing is Believing. Toronto Depending on your point of view, CBC Newsworld is an essential national TV service in need of a slight fee increase or a sacred cow looking to burden consumers with more hidden taxes. Yes, the rhetoric will be flowing next week when Canada's cable news channel seeks its first licence renewal at a hearing in Toronto before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

Launched in July 1989, despite protests that CBC was growing too powerful in TV news. News-world wants to raise its monthly charge in English-language cable markets to 59 cents from the current 32 cents. Over the seven-year period of the licence, the fee would rise to 72 cents per month by September 1998. Cable customers, however, have no say in deciding whether they will receive and pay for Newsworld. Under a form of compulsory pay TV set up by the CRTC, cable companies select the Canadian specialty channels they will offer, then deliver the channels whether customers like it or not.

Newsworld argues, however, that it provides good value for the money and stacks up favorably against other specialty channel fees, such as 32 cents a month for the youth channel YTV and about $1 for The Sports Network. Newsworld operated on an annual budget last year of alxut $27 million, with 73 per cent coming from cable subscriber fees, 23 per cent from advertising revenue and two per cent from program sales. The pro- Best Writing in an Informa tion or Documentary Program rules. "We're not talking about what the cable industry's interests are," Roscoe said recently from Ottawa "We're talking about what the consumer's choice should be." Newsworld head Michael Harris says, however, "the opposition to our increase is only from the cable industry not even the Consumers' Association (of Canada) and nobody has said we aren't doing a good job." A denial of the rate increase will lead to cutbacks at the network and a decline in program quality, he said in Toronto. Asked if it meant layoffs, or the closing of one of the four production centres in Calgary.

Halifax, Ottawa or Toronto, he replied: "We're looking at everything." On the other hand, he said if the rate increase is approved it will brighten the channel's often threadbare look, end the cries of poverty and let Newsworld reach its potential. "We built this application from the bottom up," he said. "If we get what we're asking for, that's the service we want to provide. "We're not empire-building here. We don't want to be CNN.

We just want to give Canadians a service that covers this country as well as CNN covers the world." Newsworld's appearance before the commission is tentatively set to begin Wednesday afternoon. The network will provide live coverage of its hearing, which is expected to continue through Thursday and end John Zantsky, My Doctor, My Lover. Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series Andy Jones, tathy Jones, Greg Malone, Tommy Sexton. Mary alsh. Cod co.

Best Original Music Score for a Series John Welsman, Road to Avonlea, Aunt Hetty's Ordeal. John Drainie Award Gor YTV's lineup of U.S.-made schlock, home-grown quality under scrutiny Bob Remington MICHAEL SMYTH The Canadian Press Television Toronto Is Count Duckula sucking the lifeblood out of children's television in Canada? To some, the cartoon vampire duck is one example of what's wrong with YTV, the cable specialty channel aimed at Canadian kids and teens. Others say cheaply produced American shows like Count Duckula are a necessary evil an inexpensive time filler that balances YTV's higher-quality, home-grown programs. The three-year-old channel goes before the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission next week to apply for a licence renewal. Leading up to the hearing, critics are paying extra attention to YTV's pro TV shows vie for top honors at Gemini Awards Tonight, those TV newsies from E.N.G.

will slug it out with The Road to Avonlea for top honors at this year's Gemini Awards. Imagine that grown-up TV journalists picking on a bunch of kids. E.N.G. and Avonlea lead the pack with eight nominations each in the annual awards program for Canadian TV. The two shows will duel it out in the category of best dramatic series.

Sara Botsford of E.N.G. also competes with Avon-lea's Jackie Burroughs for best actress in a dramatic series. Botsford runs the TV newsroom on E.N.G. Burroughs is the strict school marm who teaches the children of Avonlea. The Gemini Awards, tonight on CBC, will be hosted by Cynthia Dale of Street Legal and Ralph Benmergui, host of CBC's Midday.

Both are nominated themselves Dale as best actress in a dramatic 'series and Benmergui for best anchor or interviewer. talent Awards shows are almost always affairs, but give credit to the organizers at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television for coming up with some potential- Iy good talent to make the pill easier to swallow. Appearing on the broadcast will be Toronto-born Mike Meyers, best known as metal head Wayne Campbell in Wayne's World. Joining the most excellent 'Saturday Night Live regular on Gemini show is Scott who plays flamboyant gay philosopher Buddy Cole on The Kids in the Hall. Canadian country vocalist Michelle Wright also appear with Meyers and CODCO, Maniac Mansion and The Kids in the Hall are up for best comedy.

I like Maniac Mansion, the wacky YTV series about an eccentric inventor who has turned his brother into a half-human housefly, but of course, I'm sick. Actually, any of the three would suit me fine. Curtis story nominated For best TV movie, I'm rooting all the way for Journey into Darkness: The Bruce Curtis Story, a dramatized version of the true story of a Canadian youth who was implicated in a double murder in the U.S. Its competition is Getting Married in Buffalo Jump, Princes in Exile and The Rookies. For lead actor in a dramatic series, I'll pull for either Eric Peterson or C.

David Johnson of Street Ldgal. The other contenders are Mickey Rooney for YTV's The Black Stallion, and Christopher Plummer and Simon MacCor-kindale of Counterstrike. For best light information series, CBCs Life: The Program should take the cake over The New Music, Sunday Arts Entertainment, On the Road Again and Shirley. When it comes to best documentary series, I'm torn between TSN's For the Love of the Game and the independently produced The Hand of Stalin, hich ran locally on ITV. Both deserve something.

Competing with them are Man Alive, End of an Empire, and The Nature of Things. The Geminis are spread over three days, with some craft, class and performance awards given out Friday and Saturday. Major categories will be awarded tonight. But the verdict is not unanimous. Some critics say YTV broadcasts too many cheap, U.S.-produced junk shows.

Others say that even the channel's Canadian-produced hits are shallow and gimmicky. Barry Duncan, president of the Toronto-based Association for Media Literacy, worries about the "jolts-per-minute" style of Street Noise, arguably the channel's showpiece program. Street Noise examines topical teen issues like drugs and sex through kid-in-the-street interviews, rock-video-style editing and a hip-hop soundtrack. "I'm concerned about the substance of the show, which some say is all form and no content," Duncan said in a recent interview. "If kids watch it just because it has a cool look, then YTV is just pandering to them, not challenging them." Some critics have savaged the show.

Toronto Globe and Mail columnist John Haslett Cuff called it "post-literate entertainment for a post-literate generation." But YTV vice-president Dale Taylor says Street Noise must have "street cred' if it's to appeal to today's data-laden youngsters. "Kids today are practically born with a remote control zap-per in their hands," Taylor said. "They were raised to graze. If a show doesn't immediately hook them, they're going to switch channels. Street Noise must out-zap the zappers if it's to be successful." He adds unapologetically: "We never said we were going to be an educational channel." YTV president Kevin Shea, a television veteran who worked for years to establish a youth channel, doesn't flinch in the face of criticism of his financially successful enterprise.

"It doesn't bother me because the criticism is coming from adults, not from our audience," said Shea, a 40-year-old who prefers a sweater-and-loafers look at the office. "I think sometimes that Canadian critics are much too quick to condemn their own," he adds. "I think that's an unfortunate part of our national makeup: we're embarrassed by success." The criticism also has little outward effect on the channel's creative team. Walking through YTV's sparkling downtown studios, it's difficult not to be impressed by the esprit de corps of staff members, who all seem to be under 30. During one recent visit, a clutch of YTV staffers were delightedly poring over a stack of letters sent by kids to the Grogs, a troupe of puppets who entertain viewers between programs.

YTVs appearance before the commission is due to begin Tues- day morning. The network will provide live coverage of its hearing, which is expected to run into Wednesday. 1 Of all the categories in this year's awards, the race for best actress in a dramatic series is the most difficult to call. In addition to Dale, Botsford and Burroughs, the other nominees are Amanda Stepto of the now defunct Degrassi High and Jennifer Dale, Cynthia's sister, who stars in No Place Like Home, which is not seen in the Edmonton market All the actress nominees are good, but I like Burroughs and Botsford the best Flip a coin. Here's a look at some other major categories, along with some personal picks (not predictions).

Competing for best series, in addition to Avonlea and E.N.G., are Mom PL, Urban Angel and Degrassi High, which is no longer in production. Mom P.I. is charming but uneven; ditto for E.N.G. Forget Urban Angel, and Degrassi has won too many times. I'm pulling for Avonlea.

For best mini-series. Young Catherine and The First Circle go to the mat The First Circle, an adaptation of an Alexander Solzhenit-syn novel, was one of those dreadful international co-productions with more accents than a United Nations debate. I'm cheering for Young Catherine. gramming policy. In a short time, YTV has launched several new and suc cessful Canadian programs.

Street Noise, a hip current- events show for teens, and Maniac Mansion, an eccentric comedy starring Second City alumnus Joe Flaherty, have both won in ternational awards. The channel has also received praise for special projects like the YTV Achievement Awards, which recognize successful young people, and Rights On, a special produced in association with UNICEF Canada on the subject of children's rights. Best bets on TV this week Sundayfey cibson in LETHAL WEAPON 2 9:00 BOB REMINGTON Journal Staff Writer AM in the Family creator Norman Lear has returned to irreverent comedy with the outrageous The Powers That Be, Saturday nights on ITV. This promising new sitcom stars John Forsythe as a dimwit senator and Holland Taylor as his dragon lady wife. No, says Lear, they are not fashioned after the Reagans.

Nudge, nudge; wink, wink. Tonight on CBC is the Gemini Awards, Canada's version of the Emmys. CTVs E.N.G. and CBC's The Road to Avonlea will slug it out for best dramatic series along with Mom P.I., Urban Angel and Degrassi High. E.N.G.

and Avonlea also lead the Gemini list with eight nominations each. The awards show will be hosted by Cynthia Dale and Ralph Benmergui, both of whom are nominees themselves. Monday on CFRN, John Candy can be seen in one of his better big-screen roles as Uncle Buck. Candy still did his best work on SCTV as Johnny LaRue and Yosh Schmenge. Coverage of the Labatt Brier begins Sunday on TSN.

Linda Moore, Ray Turnbull and Vic Rauter call the action, or lack thereof. 't Edmonton I Here's hoping weekly episodes The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles live up to last week's George Lucas brought big-screen 'production values to the small 'screen with Young Indiana Jones "and the Curse of the Jackal, the two-hour movie that launched the new series. Young Indy slides into 'its regular time slot Tuesday night on CFRN and Wednesday on ABC. (Lucas says the regular episodes twill not contain the thrill-a-minute 'action of the Indiana Jones movies, 'nor will they be as action-packed as the last half of last week's pilot episode. Corey Carrier plays Indy at age 'eight and Sean Patrick Flanery 'plays Indy at 16.

For the real thing, check out Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Wednesday night on ITV. How intersting that PBS gets in touch with mere commoners 'whenever pledge time rolls around. Thursday night, those closet fans at PBS (yeah, sure) have programmed an entire night of music, with country music programs wrapped around its laudable Austin City Limits. IMir i 'Miami w' mm- OS) w5 60 Minutes Movie: The Great Outdoors (1988) Dan Aykroyq John Candy CTVNews News 0(0 News Then and Now Paid Political Eerie Indiana Hot Country Nights Movie: The Nightman (1992) Joanno Kerns, Jenny Robertson OS Family Hour Road to Avonlea Gemini Awards CBC News Venture CBC Alta. News UNCLE.

CBS News News 60 Minutes Murder, She Wrote Movie: In Sickness and in Health (1992) Lesley Ann Warren 'L Q(Z) News ABC News World of Discovery Home Videos Movie: Never Soy Never Again (1983) Sean Connery, Klaus Morio Brandauer 03D Northern Exposure Hot Country Nights Movie: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) Mel Gibson, Danny Glover Charlie Hoover' Passports Performance! Man and Music Performance! Between the lines To Be Announced CD 53 Nosotros Takeoffs-Land. Project Discov. New Edition Festival 100 Karaoke Chal. Community Message Board 52) Surprise sur prise Special Mexique Cinema Portion d'eternite (1989) Danielle Proulx. Marc Messier Scully rencontre Cinema (3 53) National Geo.

on Assignment Those Fabulous 40's Benny Goodman: Let's Dance A Musical Tribute E2l Inside-Racing Outdoors Bassmasters Rood Test Mag. Outdoors Truckin'USA Truck Power Inside-Racing NHRA Today Winners C3 (5:00) OHL Hockey Curling: Labott Brier Championship Transworid Sport CD 23 (6:00) Life of She-Devil Caroline's Comedy Hour Evening at the Improv Life and Loves of a She-Devil (Part 2 of 2) ED3 Movie: The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind (1989) Great Moments With Nature's Filmmakers Movie: Making B)2S (6:30) VJ Michael Williams Blue Spotlight Power 30 Backtrax Start Me Up 53 Deke Wilson Crazy Kids Manioc Mansion Block Stallion Hit List Fame Wild Side Smith and Smf SD3 At Issue On the Arts Antiques Road Show Life: The Program ED OS Bernice Gerard Ministries Bible Prophecy Door of Hope Cornerstone trs About Time World Tomorrow Terry Winter John W. White Divine Plon S3 52) Family Hour Road to Avonlea Gemini Awords CBC News Venture Sports Extra Alberta Week SPECIAL CHANNELS TBS (5:00) Movie National Geographic Explorer Focus on Beauty Making Grade World Tomorrow Sweat Reunion Beauty Break. FAM Madeline-Hat Movie: The Kids Who Knew Too Much (1980) Profiles of Nature Movie: Whistling in Brooklyn (1943) Mcvie: Invttatiod SUP Movie: Opportunity Knocks (1990) Dana Corvey, Robert loggia Movie: Once Around (1990) Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter Movie: The first Power (1990 WGN Lifestyles of me Rich and Famous News Instant Replay Monsters Billy Graham Crusode Movie: Raflerty and the Gold Dust Twins ii.