Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 12

A12 CALGARY HERALD Tuesday, June 7,1994 ENTERTAINMENT DAY OF DECISION FOR SPECIALTY CHANNELS hands A a bleak Moire QUOTABLE Rejection of Canadian Learning Television puts rescue plan in jeopardy By Bob Blakey Herald TV columnist BANFF The failure of Canadian Learning Television to win a cable-TV licence looks like a death blow to Access Television's rescue plan. The 38 licence applications rejected by the CRTC include CLT, which earli- QUOTABLE I think it's a sad and depressing day for educational television in this province and television broadcasting generally in Canada 59 Larry Shorter who helped found Access Television 65 I guess the commission responded to the fact that we would not do boring art on this service Paul Gratton, representing which promises to bring pizzazz to Canadian arts of the latter coming from the U.S. Discovery Channel. That's a service not carried in Canada but it's part of the company that runs The Learning Channel. Another victor in the cable-licence derby was Paul Gratton, one of the Bravo! representatives.

He said backers CityTV and MuchMusic will bring the necessary pizzazz to Canadian arts that will make the new channel a success. "I guess the commission responded to the fact that we would not do boring art on this service." He said suitors for program deals have already pounced at the Banff Television Festival. "I've barely walked out of the room after the announcement was made and I've already been pitched five times," Gratton said. Also at the Banff Television Festival, Ted Rogers, president of Rogers Communication, announced a $7.5 million fund to be spent on TV production in Alberta over the next five years. "The fund will serve as a mechanism for fostering the growth of Alberta's indigenous production talent through the creation of more and better Canadian television programs," Rogers said.

sion, indeed," Shorter added, but it was preferable to the absolute demise of the taxpayer-financed network. "The government clearly wants to get out of Access Television, either by selling it or just getting out of it. I think it's a sad and depressing day for educational television in this province and television broadcasting generally in Canada." Peter Bowers, a CLT shareholder, said the CRTC decision was probably based on potential audience reach. "I assume they wanted to put the most popular channels on, with the limited number of channels they had," Bowers said. "I guess they decided CLT was (aimed at) a small specialty audience and wouldn't reach the numbers that the others would.

I hope that CLT will reapply and take another try at it." In fact, CRTC chairman Keith Spicer told unsuccessful applicants not to throw in the towel, saying the rejections might have been a case of unfortunate timing. However, he was also mindful that some aspiring specialty channel investors might have been attempting too big a gamble. "We did not want to see channels go bankrupt after six months," Spicer said at an Ottawa press conference. er this year struck a deal with Alberta's public broadcaster to step in when provincial government tunding dried up. Though represented here at the Banff Television Festival, Access management was unavailable for comment Monday when the licence applications were announced.

But Larry Shorter, one of the network's founders, now a Canmore-based writer, said he was sorry to see CLT go down. "It was the last chance for a version of Access Television to survive," Shorter said. "It would have been a very pale ver Trina McQueen, a Banff festival delegate, said her new Discovery Channel licence is probably a recognition by the regulators that science-oriented viewers are under-served. "We did a survey that showed only two per cent of the programming available to Canadians is on Discovery's themes nature, environment, science and technology. So there's a whole world of great, interesting stuff out there that Canadians weren't getting," McQueen said.

Discovery will consist of 60 per cent Canadian content and 40 per cent international programming, with most AND THE WINNERS ARE Ten specialty channels get the go-ahead Applicants for Calgary market turned down home and environment, fitness and health, cooking, travel and nature or parenting and personal relationships. The weekends will be a blend. YOU promises 100-per-cent, prime-time Canadian content and plans to buy $10 million worth of Canadian programming in its first year. Controlled by Toronto-based Atlantis. Television Ventures Inc.

ARTS ET DIVERTISSEMENT French language service featuring documentaries, films dramas and performing arts programs. Controlled by Montreal's Astral Broadcasting Group whose parent company runs the movie network and holds a 50-per-cent stake in the Family Channel. will initially only offer 30-per-cent Canadian content and plans to spend $4.8 million on Canadian shows in its first year. LE RESEAU DE L'INFORMATION The CBC's long awaited French version of Newsworld. Minimum Canadian content will be 90 per cent.

THE CLASSIC CHANNEL A pay movie service featuring films from the '60s to the '80s. Subscribers will have to pay additional monthly fee and rent a signal descrambler. The Astral Communications Inc. service will operate east of Manitoba. MOVIEMAX Same format as the Classic Channel, but will be available to cable systems in the west.

Owned by Vancouver-based WIC Western International Communications Inc. travel channel. Discovery has not only licensed the name of its U.S. inspiration, it will also buy some its shows. However, the new network promises half its prime time shows will be Canadian and plans to spend $12.8 million on Canadian programming in its first operating year.

LIFESTYLE TELEVISION A television network aimed primarily at women and owned by Winnipeg-based Moffat Communications Ltd. It's promising an ambitious 60-per-cent Canadian content level for prime time and will spend $9 million on Canadian shows by the end of 1996. SHOWCASE An all-fiction channel mostly featuring re-runs of Canadian television series such as Street Legal. Some European films and dubbed versions of French Canadian dramas will also be highlighted. The three big owners are Toronto-based Alliance Communications the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

and Productions La Fete Inc. Independent Canadian producers collectively hold an eight per cent share. Showcase will feature all-Canadian programming between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. and promises to spend $10 millioji on Canadian shows during its first year.

YOU: YOUR CHANNEL YOU has created an unusual schedule based on extensive consumer research. Each weekday, all programming will be around one of five themes: By Ian Austen Southam News OTTAWA Ten new cable television channels will hit Canadian television screens early next year. Here's a' brief outline of each of the successful applicants: BRAVO! An arts channel owned by Chum Ltd. which also controls Much Music and Toronto's City TV. Its 24-hour schedule will feature programming about and performances of dance, opera, music and visual arts as well as films.

The station promises to offer 40 per cent Canadian content in prime time and will spend $4.7 million to buy and produce shows in 1995-96 THE COUNTRY NETWORK Country music video channel jointly controlled by Toronto-based Maclean Hunter Ltd. and Rawlco Communications Ltd. of Regina. The Alberta-based channel will bring country music to the MTV formula. It offers good news for would-be country singers.

The station promises to air all broadcast-quality Canadian country music videos it receives at least 30 times. Canadian performers and composers will receive $1.75 million in royalties during the first year of broadcasting. THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL Controlled by the Labatt Brewing Co. Ltd. which also controls TSN The Sports Network Discovery is a direct adaptation of a successful U.S.-based nature, science, technology and Herald staff BANFF The expanded TV universe announced Monday by Canada's broadcast regulators has no room for a fourth television station in Calgary.

Both applicants for a new broadcasting licence Altawest Television and The Alberta Channel were turned down by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. A lack of diversity and a "negative impact" on existing broadcasters in Calgary and Edmonton were the main reasons for saying no to a new Alberta TV operation. "In this case, the commission concluded that neither proposal would have added sufficient diversity to current programming choices already available to Albertans," CRTC chairman Keith Spicer said in a decision that was separate from 10 new licences granted to cable TV specialty and pay channels. CanWest's Global Television Network, which broadcasts in Ontario and also operates stations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, had proposed to set up Altawest. Programming would have included international, Canadian and local content with stations producing their own news and public affairs programs.

The competing bid, submitted by a company indirectly controlled by Stuart Craig of Brandon, would have set up A-Channel. Craig's proposal called for a variety of news and entertainment programming, including broadcasting up to eight foreign feature films per week during prime time. Spicer said there was not only concern about economic effects on Calgary and Edmonton broadcasters, but also those in rural communities, probably a reference to Red Deer and Lethbridge. Broadcasters from those communities made strong representations against a new channel at a hearing in Calgary several months ago, as did Calgary and Edmonton TV executives. One of those "interveners" at the hearing was Bruce Nelson, president of CFCN.

Nelson was elated Monday after the CRTC announced its decision. "It's good news for Alberta broadcasters," Nelson said. "There were a lot of nervous employees." Layoffs at such stations as CFCN and Calgary 7 were predicted if new competition had been allowed. (With files from Canadian Press) Danza cranky about skiing accident Arnold plans to carry on With Roseanne Arnold's divorce re-filing looking more and more like the real thing, is Tom Arnold glancing nervously at the 15-minutes-of-fame clock? "They say I'm going back to the meatpacking plant," he said in Los Angeles. "Well, I don't think they'd have me back there, so I've got to think of something else.

I wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for Rosie. But the fact is, I learned to write, produce and act over the last six years, and I've got that and I'm good at 'em. So I will continue to work." her. I was going down the run slow, real slow. It's steep but I'd done that run hundreds of times.

Then suddenly, I went down. I don't know what happened. I caught an edge skiers will know what that is and I started falling down the hill. I kept saying, 'Hey, you gotta stop but it just wasn't there. I wasn't into it like I shoulda been.

Then, somehow I got airborne and landed against the tree." Did he feel close to death? "Hey, you wake up on a respirator and everybody around you is crying, you want a second opinion fast." His condition? "It's slow but I'm coming along. I got two rods and six pins in me and my leg is all messed up. It's therapy three times a week. No matter what, it's always with you." Any insights? "Yeah. A midlife crisis in a split second." Heroes or heroines in your recovery: "Yeah, Dr.

Schlegel." No mention of wife, Tracy, or his three kids. No sense given of unfolding. His career? "I got a movie coming out July 13, Angels in the Outfield. I'm going to stay away from TV series and try the movies awhile." outs for sparing him paralysis or death. He said in January that Danza might need up to nine months to recover.

But five months later though starched with anger Danza looked highly normal except for a slight tentativeness in his carriage and an obvious weight loss. Later, he admitted to losing 22 pounds after the accident but said he got back 10 of those "and I think I like myself this way." When Danza's fiery display got no resistance from his antagonist, who endorsed his rights to privacy and anger then prepared-to leave, the actor relented. But only by half. It's as if his "ol' trouper aspect kicked in and he suddenly realized the reason for this interaction. He pleaded a long day kissing up to reporters "and you just caught me at the end of it.

I'm beat." Then, continuing with still-impatient fidgeting: "Look, I shouldn't have been on that slope to begin with. I was distracted. I wasn't concentrating on what I was doing. I was, what you'd say, in a funk. You should never go on the slopes when you can't concentrate.

"I was thinking about my mother. She died in June and it was my first Christmas without t. -J He's recovered enough to take a turn on the blades By W. Speers Knight-Ridder Newspapers PHILADELPHIA Moments before Tony Danza's outburst he was smiling with childlike abandon at the 20 young boys rollerblading. This was last week at the grim, barny Woodhaven Sports Centre here.

"I'd like to get in there with them," the actor said, "but I can't do that." He meant the backwards-skating the boys about 12 to 14 years old were doing as part of their roller-hockey drills. Unable to resist, Danza the ex-boxer who played ex-boxer Tony Banta on Taxi and ex-baseball player-turned-housekeeper Tony Micelli on Who's the Boss? pulled on a pair of blades. Then he glided onto the rink with the look of someone who knew how but was wary of having forgotten. Later he admitted to having rollerbladed for many years. Then it was time to sit and talk.

He was asked about the skiing accident. At first he seemed cooperative. Then, he started fidgeting. He avoided eye contact, focusing 90 degrees away. The forehead sweat came back.

The friendly smile turned impatient. Asked to clarify his statement about coming to land in a tree he said: "Not IN a tree. ON a tree. What's this all about anyhow? Is that it? Is that what this is about? The accident? That's all anybody wants to talk to me about. People magazine, everybody.

I'm sick of it. It happened, OK? It's been five months. I'm still trying to come back from it. What do you want from me? What do you expect me to say?" He was standing now, looking straight on and down at his offender and shouting. "You misrepresented yourself.

You didn't say this was what you wanted to talk about. You misled me." This was not a reportorial mugging. Danza's people aggressively solicited media interviews in connection with his part-own- CMSSIS ys LH) mm A ft i DANZA: Landed on a tree ership of the Bulldogs, a new pro roller hockey team starting home play at the Spectrum June 30. As with any new entertainment enterprise, it can use all the buzz it can get, and that's why Danza was here. The meeting at the Woodhaven facility was prearranged, and no mention was made of what should be asked and what shouldn't.

Besides, the subject's a compelling one. Three days after Christmas, Danza, 43, an experienced skier, was high-speeding it down a Utah slope before smashing into a tree. Hospitalized in critical condition. Broken bones, severe swelling, punctured lung, internal bleeding. His doctor, John D.

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