On Demand North of the 49th

Checking over the blog lately, I notice that I've had a lot of Cancon. So this one maybe I'll try to keep shorter.

The Canadian Upfronts are happening this week, and it's hard to conceive just how in front CTV is. They dominate every night of the week. Seventeen of Canada's Top 20 shows are on CTV. Worse, a couple of CTV's homegrown shows are even in the Top 20! It's like they can't be stopped.

So now they're innovating again. CTV announced that effective immediately, they'll be making shows available on an on-demand basis, as ABC has done with Desperate Housewives and Lost.

Initially, they'll feature sports, news, and mainly Canadian shows such as Degrassi: The Next Generation, Instant Star, Corner Gas, Canadian Idol, and the new, big budget Whistler, but eventually they might be able to start licensing Canadian On-Demand rights for U.S. Shows.

The shows will run on demand with commercials, which you can't fast-forward through -- which I think to most people is a totally acceptable compromise. Hey, if you never have to miss a show again, and all you have to do is watch a couple ads, why not? If you don't want to watch the ads, tape the show and fast forward, same as usual.

This is going to be GREAT news for Canadian Shows, which often suffer from being punted around the schedule. Canadian networks, because they depend so much on U.S. shows, are at the Americans' scheduling mercy, and Cancon gets caught in the crossfire. Maybe now, CTV at least can start to grow the appetite for homegrown product. It's hard to hate the top dog when they seem to be doing so much right.

Which brings us to Global. Global used to be on top, with the powerhouse U.S. shows, but that's slid in recent years in the withering competition from CTV. Global announced an aggressive schedule with a lot of new buys, which you can find out about here.

By the way, I didn't just link to that Sun article for the announcements, but to show you the attitude. One of the features in the reporting of all the upfront presentations is that the articles written about them dump any mention of anything homegrown right to the end. Bill Brioux, who takes a faux populist stance in most of his TV writing, goes one better:

Oh, yeah, Canadian shows? Just as at the CTV upfront, nothing we haven't seen or heard about before. More Falcon Beach, more ReGenesis, more Debbie Travis.

What a maroon. And here's a shocker, kids. He's lazy and wrong.

Global did announce more Falcon Beach. But it also announced more Jane Show, and two other new one hour dramas which I know nothing else about:

Class is a university-set show, and Quill follows the adventures of a counter-terrorism operative.

There are lots of problems in the Canadian industry that have to do with US - writers, creators, producers, that we need to solve. But idiots like Brioux, who bring a standard issue Canadian-complex-defeatism to their writing, well...Houston, we got a problem there, too.

(If anyone involved with Class or Quill reads this blog, get in touch by email. I'd love to hear a bit about your shows -- and I know considering the dearth of non-press release driven entertainment reportage in this country, I won't read any articles about the shows in the papers. Not whilst the Bill Briouxs are doing such a bang-up job on the beat.)