Canadian networks vie for viewers
Press previews long on bragging rights, short on homegrown fare
— If you think the Stanley Cup final is war, try the Canadian TV upfronts.
Rogers, Shaw and Bell each hosted press previews of their 2015-16 lineups this week in Toronto. CBC held its new season showcase last week. Media companies wine and dine advertisers in hopes they’ll sell them commercial time “upfront” of the new seasons.
Media companies are hustling to stay one step ahead of the digital revolution. Still, the old-fashioned Canadian TV game of importing and simulcasting U.S. content — as well as producing the occasional Canadian show — goes on as usual.
The competition for content — and bragging rights — is still fierce. This was most evident in duelling releases sent out this week by Bell and Rogers, with both claiming to own the nation’s No. 1 sports brands. Bell says the ratings back its claim that more Canadians watch TSN than Sportsnet. Rogers says if you add up all the viewing on the multiple Sportsnet and TSN channels, it drew the lion’s share.
Beyond the trash talk, some significant programming moves were announced this week. Sunday remains a big battleground. Last season, Rogers thought a third night of NHL action would help it bodycheck its way into the competitive mix. Instead, early games left holes on City’s Vancouver schedule. NFL on CTV and TSN was often outdrawing Hometown Hockey on City. Rogers found viewers who got their NHL fix on Fridays and Saturdays were not about to abandon The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey or Netflix fare on Sundays.
Rogers programming vicepresident Hayden Mindell leaped at a proven content fix. He picked up two animated Fox comedies that Global had more or less discarded — Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers — and plugged them into his Sunday schedule. He paired them with the Winnipeg-based Canadian sketch comedy Sunnyside and a comedy no one in Canada bought when it premièred in the U.S. this past winter: The Last Man on Earth.
Mindell’s challenge will be to exploit the hot property Rogers stumbled onto last season, Fox’s No. 1 hit Empire. Last year, Rogers had it buried on Omni stations and even this fall on City it won’t be in simulcast. The buzziest show Mindell picked up for this fall may be Scream Queens, a slasher serial starring Jamie Lee Curtis from Glee boss Ryan Murphy.
Rogers also managed to hold on to The Mindy Project, a cult comedy that migrated to the U.S. digital platform Hulu. It also got back into the late-night game with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which it will simulcast starting this September.
Among the 13 shows Shaw’s Global added to its 2015-16 schedule are several new hour-long dramas, including a TV version of Minority Report, the reboot Heroes Reborn and the new Supergirl series, a CBS pickup aimed at bringing younger viewers to the network.
While Rogers and Shaw have ripped apart schedules and entire nights, Bell added just four new shows to toprated CTV: hour-long dramas Blindspot, Code Black, Blood & Oil and the elite FBI action hour Quantico. King feels serials-slash-procedurals are the new network norm.
The private networks play down the shocking lack of new Canadian content at these upfronts. CTV, Global and Rogers have no new homegrown shows this fall. CTV also quietly said Thursday it was cancelling Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired on MTV, after 14 seasons. Viewers will have to wait until the new year for fresh Cancon to kick in.
Global has The Code with Jason Priestley starring as a former pro-hockey enforcer turned crime-solving P.I. Houdini and Doyle is a new historical drama helmed by House creator David Shore. At Rogers, the foreign-language series Blood & Water will be — after 36 years — Omni’s first-ever scripted procedural drama.
A few of the new U.S. network imports will be shot in Canada, including CTV pickups Quantico (Montreal), Global’s Heroes Reborn (Toronto) and CTV’s mid-season imports Lucifer and Flash spinoff D.C.’s Legends of Tomorrow (Vancouver).