
Canadians love their country
Homegrown music legends The Good Brothers will be inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of the Canadian Country Music Awards airing on CBC Sept. 13 at 8 p.m. Calgary-born country star Paul Brandt hosts the annual twang ‘n glitter fest honouring singers, writers, musicians, producers and behind-the-scenes contributors to the country music scene.
Usually aired from Calgary, this year the show will be held in Edmonton to help the city celebrate its 100th anniversary. The CBC has also produced a special radio program to run on most Air Canada flights at the beginning of September, featuring performers and nominees from the awards show. Last year’s show drew an average-minute audience of 769,000 viewers.

KANGAROO.TV teams with RDS for Molson Indy reality show
Utilizing KANGAROO.TV‘s handheld spectator device with a built-in monitor, motorsport fans will be able to follow Alexandre Tagliani’s (Tag) every turn at the Montreal Molson Indy Aug. 27 to 29. The device lets attendees see all of the action on any of its four live broadcast channels, and highlights of the various camera feeds will be broadcast by RDS on Tag’s reality show.

Telelatino taps into multilingual
Telelatino Network, the national Italian language channel, kicks off the new season with several new English, Italian and Spanish programs. Along with a new drama, daytime shows, reality series and viewer favourites, TLN has also picked up the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which will be broadcast in English and Spanish with plans to air Italian-language episodes down the road.

Sports Illustrated to launch swimsuit reality series
Jumping onto the reality wave, SI is teaming up with NBC to produce a six-episode series called Sports Illustrated’s Fresh Faces Competition. Along with trying to craft a popular series, the pair is hoping the buzz will translate into newsstand sales. The series is set to air just prior to the Feb. 14/05 release of the SI swimsuit issue.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_freshfaces/

New advertising hits urinals
Playing off the unwritten rule among men not to look around while standing at the urinal, New York-based Healthquest Technologies has contributed to the growing types of bathroom advertising with its Wizmark Interactive Urinal Communicator.
Touting it as ‘advertising you can’t help but look at,’ the device – which is placed in the bottom of the urinal – will, upon sensing one’s proximity, deliver various audible and visual advertising messages. Wizmark claims, ‘It’s the perfect attention-grabbing medium for advertising any male-oriented product or service – from beer to cigarettes to condoms to tools.’
http://www.wizmark.com/

Seven per cent of Canadians with savings/investments over $100,000+ make less than $10,000
This interesting finding from the latest BBM RTS survey may have you shopping for a new accountant. These consumers are female (75%), married (69%), unemployed or homemakers (50%), who own their own home (72%), have children under 18 in the household (49%), and have two cars in the family (29%). They are predominately 45 to 64 years of age (32%), followed by 25 to 44 (29%), 12 to 24 (24%), and 65-plus (14%).
Almost half don’t have RRSPs but are three times as likely to invest in real estate. They hedge their bets by spending $20 to $29 on lottery tickets each month. Looking at their shopping habits, 43% have a Sears card, 36% have a standard Visa, 26% a standard MasterCard, and 25%, an HBC card.
Three-quarters of them use coupons when shopping and the flyers delivered to their door.

BBM TV
Sept. 2, 2004
Summer 2004 TV Survey
Contains time block, program listings, time period and time block trending
(416) 445-9800, info@bbm.ca

People – Passages, Moves & News
Ted Kennedy has become the new chief of staff for CBC Radio, effective Aug. 16. Previously, Kennedy launched DMX Canada, the country’s first satellite delivered digital audio service, and spent 15 years as president of Canadian Chart Research where he researched and released 10 volumes of music research to aid CRTC compliance.
PHD Canada has named three additions to its Toronto team. Andria Meta is the strategic account manager for HomeSense and Winners. She comes from Initiative Media. Steve Gimza, previously a member of The Brainstorm Group, will be a strategic account manager on the Home Hardware account; while Nelson Costa, from ZenithOptimedia is the new tactical account manager for Hershey among other accounts.
Reader’s Digest Magazines Canada, of Montreal, has appointed Peter Stockland VP and editor-in chief of its flagship magazine, Reader’s Digest. Stockland’s 25 years of experience include a stint as editor-in-chief at the Montreal Gazette.