Prairie TV Productions & Country radio has new station
  
Will Chabun
The Leader-Post
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

No fewer than four Saskatchewan-made productions have been nominated for Canadian Film and Television Production Association awards, which will be presented next month in Ottawa. "When you think about it, this is a pretty good ratio," Don Copeman, president of Regina's Alta Nova Pictures, writes of these awards, which go to indie (independent) production firms. "There are 45 nominations in all, and four of these are from Saskatchewan. That's almost 10 per cent from a province that has three per cent of Canada's population. Not bad for Saskatchewan, especially when one considers that the industry hardly existed 20 years ago."

Don, you understand, has special reason to be proud.

Nominated in the "best documentary program or series" is his firm's documentary "Flight from Darkness", which profiles Saskatoon's Percy Paul, a man with great natural talent in physics and mathematics -- but also bipolar disorder, which gravely affects his life.

Facing off in the "best comedy program or series" are Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie, while Redemption SK, a generally grim but strangely addictive series that aired last spring on SCN (and was sufficiently popular that it was repeated in a one-day marathon), is in the "best mini-series" competition.

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There's a new radio station in Regina. If you set your radio station to 92.7 FM, you'll hear the "new country" sound of the radio station authorized for Regina last summer. Between songs, a recording says, "AstralMedia Radio is proud to be serving southern Saskatchewan."

AstralMedia Radio is the Montreal firm that recently bought Toronto-based Standard Radio, which actually got the FM licence. Historical oddity: This marks the first foray into a Saskatchewan market by a gigantic eastern media conglomerate (excepting, of course, the CBC.)

Authorized but not yet on the air in this part of the world are three more FM signals: Two First Nations-oriented (one from La Ronge, the other from Toronto) plus Golden West Broadcasting's long-awaited adult contemporary FM station in Moose Jaw. ... Speaking of broadcasting in Saskatchewan, am I the only anglo whose chubby radio dial-hopping fingers find their way frequently to 88.9 FM, which is sorta the French-language CBC 2? Check it out.


- Contact Will Chabun at wchabun@leaderpost.canwest.com

© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2008