When Networks Don't Know What They Want.

JOHN DOYLE in the Globe uses the axing of Intelligence (moment of silence...........there) to posit that "CBC doesn't know what it wants to be."

So, in getting rid of Intelligence, CBC TV has left itself open to the rage of its fiercely loyal viewers. Over the weekend, numerous readers wrote to me, all latching on to the same theme: "Cancelling Intelligence pretty well sums up CBC's decision to scrap this brilliant program." As many of those loyal CBC viewers see it, CBC has simply swapped intelligence for stupidity.

CBC itself was obtuse about the cancellations. "We certainly recognize they were frankly terrific shows and in many cases they attracted quite a degree of critical acclaim, but unfortunately they were unable to attract an audience. Audience is not our only consideration, but it is an important one," the CBC's spokesman told Canadian Press on Friday, speaking about the cancelled shows.

There's the rub - CBC TV really wants to be a big shot broadcaster, just like the commercial channels, and boast about audience success. And there's the problem - CBC doesn't know what it wants to be. A shrink would ask, 'Do you want to be popular or do you want to be smart?' CBC would probably answer, 'Well, popular is not the only consideration but it's an important one.' Then the shrink would tell CBC to make a decision, grow up and quit alienating those who love and cherish it.

It's a good column, but I'd say he doesn't go wide enough. In fact, as I wrote the other day, this isn't just a CBC problem. All the Canadian networks are like this. In CBC's case it's because they're bureaucratic and swing based on politics and management whims (even if I think the current strategy to try and woo under 50 year olds back to the broadcaster is ultimately the right call. If you want a future in broadcasting, I mean.)

CTV and Global, on the other hand, don't really develop enough of their own shows to even HAVE an identity beyond, "what did we buy this fall?" I think that's why they send out so many duelling press releases. They're desperate to prove that the audience prefers them, when really, I think the audience couldn't care less. They've made sure of that by simply being clearing houses for someone else's creativity.

In fact, you could make a strong argument that the only channel with a strong brand identity that knew what it was over the last five years was Showcase. And in the takeover of Alliance Atlantis last year by Canwest Global, they promptly sacked most of their development department. So let's see how they go from here. Fingers crossed.

These disconnects between networks and their core audiences, or even their own development people, aren't even strictly a Canadian thing, though it's probably more acute here because of the lack of development of original shows.

You could argue that the Frankenstein-like creation of the CW from the dessicated corpses of UPN and the WB was disastrous because it took one channel that knew what it was (the WB) and grafted it together with another that was far murkier (UPN.)

One of my favorite shows of the last few years, Love Monkey, was dead out of the gate -- even though the very few reruns have become a big hit in reruns on VH1. Why? It had the bad fortune to be on CBS, a network where it just did not fit.

Plus, ask any genre fan and they'll tell you that the development department at FOX has, for years, been way more ambitious and original than their current department. Fox is famous for developing these really interesting, original shows and then throwing them on the air and abandoning them. (New Amsterdam looks like the latest casualty in this regard.)

In a time when exactly zero eyeballs are guaranteed, maybe a loss leader like Intelligence is appropriate for a public broadcaster.

Then again, between DaVinci and Intelligence, Haddock did have something like nine or ten seasons of shows on the air with the CBC. CBC stuck with Ken Finkleman through series that drew increasingly smaller returns. At what point do you shake it up and try something else?

Intelligence is gone, and that's sad. But we won't know the second verse of this tune for a few more weeks.

In the meantime, I wonder if Showcase has some money to burn? Some of us still really want to find out what happened to Jimmy Reardon.