New Orleans: Distributors and producers surveying shipping orders following the 2000 edition of natpe are giving this year's market mixed reviews. With multimedia occupying an ever greater proportion of booth space on the gigantic trade show floor, straight program selling seemed a bit slow.

Still, lots of new product was onscreen and several distribs were dying to characterize the market as their proverbial "best ever."

Andre Provencher, president of TVA International, says he took a $50-million slate to the Deep South. First up, a 50-50 coproduction, 13 hours of a variety/entertainment series to be produced with Cirque du Soleil Images.

"But it's not only about the circus. It's everything from Ed Sullivan to Saturday Night Live." Provencher says English and French broadcasters are showing enthusiasm.

A new project between tva and Expand Images of France is Commodore, a 13 x 60 "adventure game show" similar to tva's long-running Fort Boyard, to be set on a moving train in the Rockies.

Coming for kids are 13, or more likely 26, animated half-hours of Kakawi, about "a Canadian duck." The series, which is to blend 2D, 3D and cgi elements, also involves Cirque Images. As with the Cirque variety series, Granada tv in the u.k. gets first look.

tva returns to mow production, says Provencher, with "four or five" on the slate for 2000, including Special Delivery, which is to air on Fox Family. tva will launch for world sales at afm.

Toronto's Decode Entertainment had ambitious plans for the market, with principal Steven DeNure noting Decode is executive producing and handling worldwide sales for the Studio b property What About Mimi?, in association with EM Entertainment of Germany. Thirteen half-hours are underway, to air this fall on Teletoon, which has ordered 13 more.

Decode has sold 13 x 30 of Mainframe Entertainment's Weird-Ohs to Fox Family and ytv; word was pending on a pickup order from ytv.

DeNure and partners are also exec producing and handling world sales on Our Hero, 13 half-hours from Toronto's Heroic Pictures. Planning a fall 2000 launch, cbc has picked up the series. Creators are John May and Suzanne Bolch, who are producing the live-action teen drama with Karen Lee Hall. Decode hit the market in search of international partners for Our Hero, which starts shooting this month in Toronto.

Decode is producing and distributing worldwide (ex-u.s., which Lancit is handling) on 26 half-hours of the live-action, coming-of-age series The Zack Files. Heading for a shoot start in April, the series airs this fall on Fox Family and ytv, and DeNure says "a number of international presales" are in place.

With the first 26 x 30 eps of Watership Down about to wrap production, financing is coming together for the second season. The classic tale is a treaty coproduction with the u.k.'s Alltime Entertainment, which has tv rights in the u.k. and worldwide video, while Decode has worldwide tv. Merchandising Munchen is the German partner.

Decode's official launch of 26 x 30 eps of Sound Venture's The Toy Castle, which will shoot soon in Winnipeg. Treehouse will air the preschool program.

Great North's

traveling Circus

A three-person crew goes on the road in Ontario this summer to shoot 13 half-hours of the docusoap Circus for Edmonton's Great North Productions.

Life Network will air the series, which will follow day-to-day action among performers in the Garden Brothers Circus. "These acts come from all over the world," says Great North's Andy Thomson. "The tenth of September is the last show, and then they're going to go back where they came from. It's gonna be beautiful and emotional and touching." A producer has not yet been attached, but Thomson expects to begin deliveries next January.

Great North's joint venture with u.s partner, a company called GRB Great North Entertainment, will deliver a first cycle of three hours of In the Nick of Time to tlc in the u.s. tlc will air the three six months after they air on Life Network. Meantime, History Television has ordered 14 more hours of The Canadians from Great North.

The company expects to produce 97.5 to 100 hours or some $27 million worth of programming - mostly docs and factual shows - for the 00/01 season, which includes pickup orders on about 75% of last year's slate.

Brisk sales for Mona

Louis Fournier, vp sales and coproduction, Cinar Corp., says this year's market really was his busiest ever. One of the key properties at natpe was the heavily promoted Mona the Vampire. "Sales have been brisk from mipcom onward and it's done well on ytv," says Fournier. The show has sold to many key markets, including to Nick u.k., "but the u.s. is the only one left that needs to be cracked."

Fournier says he met with a couple of American broadcasters, but he's looking for a client who'll buy into the show's hit potential, and the business plan of going beyond the current 26 half-hour production run.

In selling a "nice girl" show such as Mona as a franchise or potential branding property, Fournier says the client has to hone in on character and story qualities, and the level of animation work, in a pitch framework he refers to as "passionate."

"The success we've had internationally is not a fluke," he says, "you are going to hear more about it."

Fournier says if there was "a little less activity on the [market] floor," it may also be true participants are more businesslike. He says demand in children's in the u.s. is skewed more to the six to 12 demographic.

In the highly integrated u.s. market, Cinar does business with pbs, Nickeleodeon and Fox Family Channel, among others. "The market has gotten tougher. You need to work harder and everyone is in the same position - having to connect in the u.s., but still find some financing elsewhere."