After a week of dealing with the necessary evils of production financing, distribution and defining "motivation" for the Harvard MBA in the perfect suit, manicure and hair, who now runs the network -- it's good to be reminded of why you got into show business in the first place. And that's not as hard to find midst the phony glitz and exotic facades of Las Vegas as you might think. The grounding I needed was at the MGM Grand...

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I'm into the home stretch at NATPE, the annual desert journey for seekers of wisdom in the television trade. Up to my neck in meetings, conferences, pitches and major league network players. It'll be a day or two before I find the time and space to decompress and communicate what I'm learning down here.Lesson #1: Don't ask Flavor Flav "What time it be, dawg?". Dude's got some kind of clock/watch bling issue.But changing times...

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A couple of Canadian Icons collided in the public consciousness this weekend. First, the National Film Board of Canada put its massive archive of Canadian films online. And tonight, the NHL all-Star game will be played in Montreal in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the leagues most successful franchise, the Montreal Canadiens (French Spelling).For most Canadian kids, films...

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Last spring I was on Vancouver Island and the Toronto Maple Leafs still had a slim chance of making the playoffs. But the game I wanted to watch was only available on the team's own 'Leafs TV' channel. And you can't get Leafs TV in British Columbia.But I still saw the game.A couple of weeks back, one of the blogs I read linked a clip from "Saturday Night Live" courtesy of Hulu.com, but content from Hulu can't be accessed from...

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Well, the BIG day has passed and Barack Obama is finally President of the United States. I've been impressed by this guy for a while and it's refreshing to finally have somebody in a position of power in America who seems to possess both great qualities of character and a clear desire to make the world a better place. I could have done without the Media Love-In that accompanied him into office. But I realize that in a time of...

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Bless the sweet baby Jesus! Is it cold here in Canada right now or what!?! Minus 30, Minus 40 -- who cares whether that's Fahrenheit or Celsius, we're talking COLD! And don't even get me started on what that kind of cold does to your life when you factor in wind chills, no-visibility blowing snow and black ice! Forget trying to start the car. And the dog takes one look outside and curls back in a ball, quite happy to hold it until...

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There's no doubt that a dramatic shift in the way people access their entertainment options is well under way. Traditional business models in broadcasting, publishing and music distribution are all undergoing quantum shifts. It's a crucible of fire that vaporizes those who can't embrace change while forging new heroes imbued with the power to take us forward.Last month, in part one of this mini-series, I looked at Ivan Fecan,...

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"You've got to love it when magazines release better films than Hollywood." — Rolling Stone As the Main Stream Media continue to chronicle their own decline -- smaller newspapers, magazines folding, TV networks reducing their hours of new drama; it's only natural for us creative types to wonder where we'll find outlets for what we create and how we'll find an audience for them when we do.We needn't...

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INTRODUCTORY CLASS: ACQUIRING THE PROPER ATTITUDEI'm always looking for new things to do with this space. I think that comes from the actor/dramatist/money-grubbing producer sides of me that demand neither I or those of my readership/audience ever get bored.Last summer Dix and I had a long face-to-face thrash on why I don't write about writing. Basically, what it came down to is Uncle Willis is one of those kind, caring, sharing...

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The longer I hold my pulse against the thumb of the nation, the more I get the feeling that 2009 will be about courage and individual creativity. The big guys are all going to be engrossed in saving their own sorry asses and we'll be mostly left to fend for ourselves.Times like these require a level of personal strength and clarity of vision that many of us have never had to find in the past. And...

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It's customary for every media outlet from your local weekly newspaper to Jib-Jab to put out a review of the past year and what follows is the best I've found so far. But wouldn't it be great if we could all have this attitude when the events were happening instead of in retrospect.No matter what happens, make sure you have a Happy 2009. Because a year from now, it's all going to look like this...

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