You know times are tough in televisionland when Variety dubs the situation ‘the season from hell.’
That headline referred to rampant axing and shuffling south of the border. But the unanimous scuttlebutt up here at the mid-season mark is that, in the horse race among Canadian nets, CanWest’s ponies are faltering at the turn.
The caster gambled big on new acquisitions and lost big with five cancellations among new shows for Global and CH: Skin, Coupling, L.A. Dragnet, The Lyon’s Den and The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H.
But the latest Nielsen Media Research numbers don’t quite consign Global to the scratched category. In Ontario, while it’s true that Global is trailing CTV in the two key demos of 18 to 49 and 25 to 54 (season start through the end of November) – when it comes to the 18-to-34 crowd, Global is actually in the lead (see chart p.18).
Even so, like almost every net in Canada, Global’s overall average-minute audiences in Ontario (season start through end of November) are down from last year. In the 18-to-34 demo, the drop was from 31,000 to 28,000; for 18 to 49, it was from 64,000 to 58,000; and for 25 to 54, from 64,000 to 59,000.
Meanwhile, CTV’s comparatively conservative mix of old and new shows is paying off with only one cancellation (Boomtown) and six of the top-10 shows against the 18-to-49 demo, new season start through the end of November (C.S.I., C.S.I. Miami, ER, Canadian Idol, The West Wing and Law & Order).
Yet CTV’s overall audience numbers in Ontario (season start through the end of November) – which remained steady between the 2001 and 2002 seasons – have dropped in all three key demos. In fact, they dropped more than Global’s, percentage wise, for the two younger groups. For 18 to 34, the drop was from an average minute audience of 26,000 to 23,000; for 18 to 49, from 73,000 to 66,000; and for 25 to 54, from 80,000 to 76,000.
Meanwhile, third-place Citytv too has experienced audience declines in Ontario across all three key demos, including a drop from 24,000 to 18,000 for 18 to 34; a drop from 43,000 to 38,000 for 18 to 49; and a drop from 41,000 to 38,000 for 25 to 54.
Bottom-lining the situation to date, Kathleen Khoorshed, broadcast buying manager for Toronto’s OMD, says: ‘It’s not a really strong season and there certainly don’t seem to be any breakout hits. But the programs are performing pretty much as we expected from the upfronts, and our clients are reasonably happy.’
Global: Scrambling to plug holes
The most serious loss for Global was the flame-out of Coupling because the series was considered a desperately-needed replacement for Friends, now in its final season.
The cancellation surprised buyers, says Khoorshed, ‘because among the new shows, it was ranking number two in Canada [when NBC pulled the plug in early November]. Apparently, it wasn’t doing as well in the States…and unfortunately, the broadcasters here are dictated to as to what will stay on the schedule and what won’t.’
What’s arguably even worse, adds OMD managing director Sherry O’Neil, is that a Friends-less Global will actually face ‘double jeopardy’ next season if the rumour about another veteran ratings champ comes true and Frasier also departs.
Global programming SVP Adam Ivers concedes that ‘it’s been a choppy fall.’ But he insists that drop-outs are simply inevitable ‘when you’re the largest-volume buyer and commissioner of content in the country. And anyway, cancellations breed opportunities.’
Those opportunities include pick-ups such as The Apprentice, a kind of Survivor for MBAs from original Survivor creator Mark Burnett. The reality show, which premiered Jan. 8, features 16 competitors vying for the job of a lifetime in the Trump organization, with Donald Trump himself stepping up to fire a contestant a week.
Dennis Dinga, VP/director of broadcast buying at Toronto’s M2 Universal, isn’t hot on reality shows in general, but predicts this one will be a winner. ‘I think it will do better than just good,’ he says, especially because of its Wednesday night time slot, ‘where it’s up against some not-so-good, younger-skewing programming.’
Other replacements include Zoe Busiek: Wild Card, which premiered in November; Average Joe: Hawaii and Line of Fire, both of which premiered in December; and ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a new ABC series whose pilot, says Ivers, actually beat the ratings for the second half of Law & Order when it debuted in December. Coming up in February is the eighth edition of Survivor, in which previous contestants will compete for $2 million.
As for the new fall debuts, Ivers argues that CH actually boasts the top contender with Las Vegas because the two series that have bested it in the ratings so far, The O.C. and Coupling, debuted in the summer rather than fall. And Global’s Two and a Half Men is among the seasonal successes singled out by buyers.
CTV: Still riding high
At CTV, Rick Lewchuk, SVP of programming planning and promotion, says his net is ‘delighted’ with buyer consensus that The O.C. is the season’s top new show.
He’s equally pleased with the consistent top-20 performance of The West Wing, about which he says: ‘there were a lot of questions as to whether it could survive losing its creator [Aaron Sorkin]. But now it’s got new life and viewers are coming back to it.
‘Also,’ adds Lewchuk, ‘Newlyweds and The Simple Life are doing solid numbers [as is] 8 Simple Rules, in spite of the sudden death of John Ritter.’
Buyers add that Canadian Idol did well for their clients and that two other new CTV shows – I’m With Her and Joan of Arcadia – are turning into, if not runaway hits, at least solid performers.
M2 Universal’s Dinga has a hunch that ‘Joan could take the same route as Touched By an Angel if they move it to Sunday nights at 7 or 8 p.m., because it’s a great show for family viewing.’
During the remainder of this season, CTV will present American Idol 3 and two new Canadian comedy series, Corner Gas and Keys Cut Here, plus 13 new episodes of W-Five. Additionally, a new season of the undeservedly overlooked Canadian drama series The Eleventh Hour will take over Nip/Tuck’s Sunday night time slot shortly after that controversial series vamooses on Jan. 18. Finally, Canadian Idol will roar back for a second season come spring.
Citytv: The Bachelorette lives on
David Kirkwood, EVP of marketing and sales for Toronto-headquartered CHUM, says that City’s audience erosion, as reflected in the latest Nielsen numbers, is not really worrisome ‘because more than most other broadcast enterprises, City has developed a brand that makes for a more predictable destination for viewers.’
A bigger surprise, he says, was that even though The Bachelor had done well with an average rating of 7.3 (18-49, Ontario, Sept.-Nov. ’03), ‘we had no idea what a huge blockbuster The Bachelorette would turn out to be this season.’ The three ‘Trista & Ryan’s Wedding’ episodes averaged 8.1.
But the net’s under-performers, says Dinga, include Enterprise, which ‘really fell off in its second year even though typically the Star Trek shows are strong for five or six seasons – probably because they’ve stretched a single story line throughout.’
The Bachelorette 2 is Citytv’s only new show for the remainder of this season. But MuchMusic is presenting Making the Band 2, this time around sub-titled P. Diddy’s Search for a New Hip Hop Supergroup. M3 also premiered a new snoop-on-celebrities series called The Fabulous Life of…in December, featuring Jennifer Lopez. Next up are Britney Spears and super-couple Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
CBC: ‘Momentum campaign’ pays off
Again this season, CBC’s programming, or rather its lacklustre ratings compared with top American shows, continued to prompt indifference among buyers. But Slawko Klymkiw, executive director of network programming, contends that CBC’s year-long ‘momentum campaign’ is paying off big-time.
‘Between September and early December, every night of the week is either up or on par and our average share for prime time is 7.8, which is 4.4 higher than during the same period last year. Mondays nights are up 44%, Tuesdays 22%, Wednesdays 4%, Thursdays 41%, Fridays on par, Saturdays up 4% and Sundays up 48%.’
Part of CBC’s momentum strategy, says Klymkiw, has been ‘to release our series in a much more gradual fashion so they won’t get clobbered by the huge wave of American competition and huge promotional campaigns.’
Even so, buyers are less than excited about what Klymkiw calls ‘heritage projects [that leave] something valuable for this country’ such as Halifax: Shattered City, which aired in October. Why? Because ‘clients don’t like to be associated with disasters,’ according to one Toronto media buyer. Yet Klymkiw points out that the four-hour mini-series averaged 1.5 million viewers and the accompanying documentary about the event pulled about a million.
On Jan. 4, CBC premiered Human Cargo, a drama series about immigrants, as well as the network premiere of Helen Mirren’s popular Prime Suspect series. And the following week, CBC launched what it hopes will be a powerhouse Monday evening with Rick Mercer’s Monday Night Report; a new season of Ken Finkleman’s The Newsroom; and a new lawyer series called This is Wonderland.
Later in the season, CBC will debut Political Animal, based in an Ottawa Cabinet minister’s office; Canadian Experience from producer Mark Starowicz (Canada: A People’s History); and Il Duce Canadese, a mini-series about the little-known internment of Italian-Canadians during World War II.
