Cannes, France: If program sales are the soupe du jour for Canadians at MIP-TV, the search for partners in coproduction has become the hottest selling hors d'oeuvre. With ad revenues and licence fees down, specialty channels up, and the sale-and-leaseback tax incentive renewed in the U.K. (while German incentives appear to be shrinking), coproduction is the spritzer in the Canadian production finance mix.

At Toronto's Decode Entertainment, the Angela Anaconda franchise still burns white-hot, with a feature in production and work furiously afoot on the third season of the series, while the company is busy targeting the teen-plus demographic with its new animated series Undergrads.

Introduced to journalists on a ship off the starboard side of the Palais, Undergrads is the creation of 21-year-old New Yorker Pete Williams, who won an MTV animation contest with the concept for the series.

The edgy net, looking for its next Beavis and Butthead, put the series into "three years of development," according to Williams, until hooking up with coproducers Decode and MTV Animation for 13 half-hours. Teletoon Canada is on board.

Fireworks Entertainment, which had a busy market, says it has made its "first foray in the competitive U.K. terrestrial market" with a sale of season one of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda to Channel 4, which has an option to buy subsequent seasons. A second cycle is greenlit in the U.S. Fireworks says it's the highest rated one-hour in syndication, adding it has made a video deal for Andromeda with Contender Entertainment Group, seasons I and II, for the U.K. and Eire. Andromeda stars Kevin Sorbo as captain of the "intergalactic starship."

Nelvana buzz

Buzz around the market was that Nelvana would soon release some trend-type news (something beyond the potential Corus acquisition of the Cinar library). Meantime, on a windy, smoky afternoon at the booth, the efficient Cathy Laughton, managing director of Nelvana's London office, enumerated lots of sales. Laughton noted Medabot has gone to all cable satellite channels in the U.K., including Sky 1, Nickelodeon, Fox, Cartoon, ITV and BBC. Cardcaptors, for which Nelvana holds rights for North America and the U.K., went to ITV.

The evergreen Little Bear franchise is growing with a US$3-million hour-long movie for TV called Wild Bear. BBC is set to buy the film. Better suited to Channel 4 are older-skewing toons Pelswick and Quads.

Laughton says C4 had the first season of Pelswick and ordered 13 more half-hours. Quads is set to launch on the channel in 2002, after 11 p.m.

Laughton is "catching up" Channel 5 with Nelvana inventory, including 65 eps of Rolie Polie Olie for the post-Disney window, 65 of venerable Babar and 39 of darkest Redwall.

Laughton reported Nick U.K. carted off a basketful of half-hours, including new episodes of Redwall, Franklin and Little Bear, plus Maggie and the Ferocious Beast with U.K. voices. Fox Kids picked up 26 half-hours of Braceface and plans to order more, for airing in Scandinavia, Latin America and the Netherlands. Fox Kids also bought all the Franklins for the Netherlands, plus the Franklin and the Green Knight movie.

At Alliance Atlantis, EVP of TV distribution, Marnie Sanderson, says although buyers require more decision-making, the AAC sales team was busy. While AAC reported numerous sales between NATPE and MIP, Sanderson still had interesting notes.

The Judy Garland miniseries Me & My Shadows, which aired on ABC in February with more than 20 million viewers for Part 1, will hit the Hallmark Asian, European and Latin American satellite feeds. Sanderson says for C.S.I., the CBS drama that scored big with U.S. primetime audiences, AAC was "filling in sales gaps" with discussions with TSR Switzerland, French Belgium and ORF Austria. AAC sold its Canadian lawyer drama The Associates to Showtime Mideast.

For AAC Fact, hot science and health titles included Gladiatrix, Extreme Body Parts and Offspring. Lifestyle programming sold includes: Secret Safaris, a one-hour doc about arms smuggling in Africa, to SVT Sweden and RTE Ireland; This Small Space, to Ananey Israel and to Home Choice video-on-demand in the U.K.; and Skin Deep, to Discovery Health U.K.

Salter's strong sales

Halifax-based Salter Street Films had a "phenomenal" MIP, reporting its strongest sales in four years. Stephen Kelley, VP of international sales, says TV1 Australia and Sky NZ prebought season IV of LEXX, now in production on its fourth season with 24 new hours for the SCI FI Channel U.S. and Citytv Canada. Seasons I-III went to Sony AXN in Spain and Japan.

Kelley sold seasons III and IV of Flightpath, now shooting its fifth season of 13 one-hours in Toronto, to Discovery Europe before MIP, and sold V at the market. Digi-channel Discovery Wings in the U.S. took the new season.

XYZ Australia stepped up for a package of movies.

Kelley says he sold the 3 x 60-minute doc series Cod to Media Park, Spain. Season I of Loving Spoonfuls, which is greenlit for another 26 half-hours for WTN, sold to Israel and Finland. Meanwhile, Kink, 13 documentary half-hours with an entirely different take on loving, sold to TV Metropole in Norway. Showcase in Canada launched Kink April 7.

The imX/Funbag series For Better or For Worse, 16 half-hours, sold to SVT Sweden, while The Itch, made for Comedy Net in Canada and headed for a second season, went to Comedy Channel Australia.

Thomas Howe of Vancouver-based Sextant Entertainment and VP of coproduction Deborah Drisdell say the market "generated a huge amount of interest in our development slate." Howe expects a big year for production, with such new titles as Rabbit in a Hole going into production along with CGI series Micronauts, which is presold to CTM Germany and YTV.