Canada's TV Fest Probes Asian TV Market.

Every year, for the past 22 years, props are taken out of Hollywood and brought to the serene village of Banff, set deep in the Rockies of Western Canada for a TV festival.

The week-long June Banff Television Festival -+and conference is committed to celebrating and promoting excellence in television and this year is no exception. A jam-packed schedule features more than 50 hours of workshops and master classes, designed to appeal to industry veterans and novices alike.

Banff president Pat Ferns announced that there, will be a major focus on the trends and developments of the Asian broadcast community. Over the past few years, Banff (a village where most businesses are Japanese-owned) has exhibited an increased interest in all things Asian. Delegates from China, Japan and Singapore have attended for years and it seems as though both Korea and India want in on the action. The Japanese NHK will introduce the new NHK President's Prize, which will award C$25,000 annually to the winner of the best program at the Banff Rockie Awards. Speakers from the Asia Pacific region will host a variety of seminars throughout the week that will culminate in a special "Breakfast with Asia" event on Wednesday, June 13, the festival's third day. At this meeting, the delegates will be welcomed by some of the most industrious Asians in the TV community and be invited to sift through their TV contributions of the last few decades.

As in the past, TV execs have flocked to Banff to make connections, and more importantly, deals. It is not always easy for people with projects to pitch to get their material seen by the right people. But at Banff the right people seem to be everywhere. A chance meeting with producer extra-ordinaire David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Public) at Banff 1999 taught attorneys and writers Steve Blackman and Greg Ball how to best pitch their idea for a fresh new law series. The result: a cushy spot for their show, The Associates, on Canada's own CTV.

A primary reason for many to attend the festival is Banff's Rockie Awards, which includes cash prizes for excellence in television in 14 different categories. Among them: comedy, animation, made-for-TV movie, miniseries and sports program.

Banff is offering a total of 24 highly popular master classes. The 90-minute seminars will focus on writing, producing and directing, as well as the documentary and children's programming genres. This year's masters include Norman Jewison, director of Canada's The Hurricane and Darren Star of Sex and the City fame. The globally known International Market Simulation, Banff's signature event, will take place on June 12 and 14.

Kelsey Grammer, star of Paramount's long-running, critical darling Frasier, will be awarded the Sir Peter Ustinov Comedy Network Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Television. Previous winners include Tracey Ullman, Bob Newhart, Martin Short and John Candy. The Frasier team -- Grammer in particular -- are no strangers to the festival, having won the Rockie Award for Best Comedy for three consecutive years, 1994 through 1996. The top-rated Cheers, in which Grammer played the same role, won a Special Jury Prize at Banff in 1992.

Typically, the Banff Television Festival attracts some 1,800 attendees each year and this year will be no different.