BBC Kids, which airs Doctor Who across Canada, has announced a slight change in their broadcast schedule. "Due to a technical issue, our current weekday broadcast of 'Kinda' (on February 20th & 23rd) and 'The Visitation' (on February 24th & 25th) were pre-empted. Both stories will be included in the next weekday run of episodes. Our weekend showings of the Davison years remain uninterrupted. Both stories will run on their regularly scheduled weekend dates: 'Kinda' (all four episodes) on Saturday, February 28th at 1:00am & 3:30am 'The Visitation' (all four episodes) on Sunday, February 29th at 1:00am & 3:30am".

Issue 2 of the Canadian fanzine Whotopia is out; it includes such features "20 Questions with Louise Jameson," "Season 5: The Year of the Monsters," "The Making of Doctor Who Recons Part II," "The Scream of The Shalka Overview" and other highlights. For more details visit http://whotopia.tvheaven.com. (Thanks to Bob Furnell)

Canada's BBC Kids network is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who with 40 back-to-back episodes starting on November 23 at 10am. The marathon runs through Monday, November 24 at 6am. "Forty years after it's debut, Doctor Who û airing exclusively in Canada on BBC Kids û consistently attracts loyal viewers and has spawned legions of followers and exhaustive fan sites," says John Gill, Senior V.P. Programming, BBC Kids. "BBC Kids is celebrating this milestone in style, offering viewers the opportunity to relive The Doctor's many adventures while introducing a whole new generation of fans to the classic villains and monsters of intergalactic travel." BBC KidsÆ time travel marathon will feature nine favourite storylines featuring Tom Baker as The Doctor, including two stories written by the late Douglas Adams (HitchhikerÆs Guide to the Galaxy). The marathon includes "The Ark in Space," "Genesis of the Daleks," "Pyramids of Mars," "The Deadly Assassin," "The Robots of Death," "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," "The Pirate Planet," "City of Death," and "Logopolis". (Thanks to Graeme Burk)

Who Across America 2000: Plans are underway for a national "Whovians across America" Doctor Who pledge event to be recorded and fed live from Pittsburgh's WQED in October. The marathon may be made available to all the public television stations that carry Dr.Who in the U.S. in late October. (Due to licensing restrictions, only current stations airing Dr.Who in the U.S. are eligible to air the special being packaged exclusively by WQED and BBC syndication sales.) The format calls for two special guests from the classic series to pick two of their own episodes, and fans across the net to vote for their all time favorite episodes with the same actors via an exclusive web-poll.

BBC Canada?: As of early April 2000, the BBC and Alliance Atlantis productions submitted a bid to the CRTC to launch BBC Canada, a digital Cable network. If the bid is approved, BBC Canada would try to launch sometime in 2001. Doctor Who would theoretically be one possibility for broadcast on this station, as it is on BBC America. (Thanks to Benjamin Elliott)

New Word on the TV Movie Rights in America: Some curious news about the rights to rebroadcast the Doctor Who 1996 TV movie with Paul McGann in America. Sources indicate that the US rights to the 1996 film are held by Studios USA (formerly Universal.) FOX's rights to the program expire May, 2000 -- not the previously rumored New Year's eve 1999 expiration. The cost to purchase the rights to the program are, unfortunately, prohibitive for PBS stations (somewhere in the ball park of half a million dollars.) Studios USA, however, is owned by Barry Diller, who also owns the USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel, so it is possible that the movie could turn up on one of those two outlets. (Information courtesy Benjamin Elliott)