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The flurry of fall launch presentations has done little to flutter heartbeats among television critics in the media and the media buying ranks.

With attention diverted to a certain extent to the new players on the Canadian broadcasting horizon, the recently announced specialty networks, conventional broadcasters saw the impact of their sales presentations muted somewhat this year.

‘Nobody got really excited about the Canadian content,’ says Donna McDougall, group manager, broadcast buying at Initiative Media in Toronto. Overall, she adds, the schedules are tried-and-true, formulaic, promoting lots in the way of family values.

More Cancon

Still, primetime viewing in the 1994/95 season will include some six-and-a-half hours of new Canadian content spread across the cbc, CTV Television Network and Global Television schedules, with the most new Cancon (three hours on a regular basis) coming from ctv. ctv, in combination with programming provided by its affiliates, is promising 50% Canadian content in prime; cbc says its numbers are up 2% from the ’93 season to 88%; at Global, the figure is 50%.

At its launch presentation, ctv teased the audience with a tape of ctv’s vice-president of entertainment programming, Arthur Weinthal, who led his new program description with his best Chevy Chase imitation: ‘I’m at Banff (Television Festival) and I guess you’re not.’

Since ctv canceled e.n.g., Counterstrike and Matrix after last season, major replacements were in order. First up, Due South, a one-hour comedy-drama airing Thursdays at 8 p.m. and much-hyped as the first Canadian-produced series (from Alliance Communications) to be simulcast in prime by an American network, in this case cbs. Competition in the slot is not too fierce: Mad About You on Global is in a new time on Thursdays, followed by Friends, and cbc airs the veteran The Nature of Things.

McDougall says she expects Due South will do well, particularly in Canada, although she wonders whether the series might suffer if Americans don’t ‘get the humor’ or if the writing will over-exaggerate the stereotypes. She recalls the pilot pulled strong ratings, adding Canadian lead Paul Gross has ‘hunk appeal’.

TekWar, the new, futuristic program from Atlantis Communications and Lemli Productions, airs Thursdays from 9-10 p.m. after Due South. The competition here is much stiffer, with the expensive, effects-laden TekWar vying with the popular and loopy Seinfeld on Global at 9 p.m. cbc’s 9 p.m. entrant is North of 60, (from Alliance), which, while a solid performer and award-winner last season, returns without its central male lead this year, the John Oliver character Mountie Eric.

ctv’s Weinthal says he’s more comfortable having TekWar opposite Seinfeld than he was airing the newsroom drama e.n.g. in the same battle zone. ‘TekWar is quite clearly an alternative show to one (Seinfeld) that’s been on-air five years.’ Be that as it may, predicts McDougall, TekWar will be beaten up, although she expects it will last out the season.

Lonesome Dove

ctv’s third new hour is Lonesome Dove, a one-hour western drama from Telegenic Programs and Susan De Passe, sporting a $1 million-plus per-episode budget and a 9 p.m. Saturday time slot. Weinthal says it’s already been sold in syndication in over 180 u.s. markets.

ctv has also commissioned ‘five or six’ original documentaries from independent producers which Weinthal says will run intermittently in the W5 slot, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. In addition, the network boasts a strong slate of animated specials for next season, from such producers as Cinar, Cambium, Lacewood and Nelvana.

At cbc, where much of the media criticism has focused on the ‘lack of vision’ and has on occasion damned the fall fare, critics might be tempered by a little vision from the executive suite. Phyllis Platt, executive director of arts and entertainment, says the coming season, with CBC Prime Time News shifted back to 10 p.m., figures to be a ‘transition year.’

She hopes to try new things at and after 11:30 p.m., following the regional news. By the time the ’95/96 season rolls around, says Platt, she’d like to be using the 11:30-midnight slot for experimental or developing formats; or, even though critiques of Friday Night! with Ralph Benmergui became a ‘blood sport,’ the network might think about doing ‘The Great Canadian Late Night Talk Show.’ Or maybe program some low-budget experimental drama, or some material from regional stations.

Platt also wants to try the limited series format: running what would normally be a 2×2-hour miniseries as 4×1 hours in prime.

Children’s shows

Children’s shows – particularly new ones – were in short supply at cbc’s launch. Platt says Peter Moss, hired a year ago, is working to decide which shows need a fresh face and how the Corp. can bring more material into the sked. As always, the search continues for more and better sources of funding; Platt points out her employer ‘is still facing the (former Tory finance minister Don) Mazankowski (budget) cuts.’

And finally, in answer to the ‘same old, same old’ critics, Platt argues against a quantum shift for cbc. She says that when popular shows such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Kids in the Hall move into early prime, when offerings such as Witness, Air Farce and others are doing well, why pull them?

Meantime, in 1994, cbc will air two-and-a-half hours of new Cancon, including Side Effects (a street medical setting to replace Street Legal), mid-season add-on Liberty Street, focusing on Generation Xers, and a weekly Friday night musical variety series, Rita & Friends, to be hosted by Rita MacNeil.

McDougall of Initiative Media says Side Effects will be well-served by inheriting both the Street Legal time slot and one sl alumnus, Albert Schultz.

50:50 ratio

Platt says the independent to in-house production ratio will remain about 50:50.

She says she hopes Canadian filmmakers won’t be disappointed with Cinema Canada’s 11:30 p.m. time slot and that ratings will be as good as they were at 10 p.m.

At Global, the sole new Canadian drama program in prime is Mrs. Mike, an hour-long mid-season entry from Atlantis. It’s an 1880s period piece a la Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and follows a Boston woman transplanted to, and captivated by, the Yukon. Mrs. Mike will air Friday at 8 p.m., opposite cbc’s Rita and Friends and ctv’s Unsolved Mysteries, in the slot previously held by Skyvision’s Heart of Courage and Atlantis’ The Ray Bradbury Theater. Global says it will air some more of Ray, following first window runs on pay-tv.