-Global aces the ID challenge

Changing a network’s on-air environment is the active process of resisting the temptation to take something simple and make it complicated, says Brian Neal, the 10-year director of creative services for the Global Television Network.

It’s a lovely bit of work, this new Global brand which launched the week of Aug. 18. It marks the end of CanWest’s affiliate station ids and leaves all henceforth collectively and individually known as Global, pieces of the Global Television Network, a CanWest company.

Gone is the Spirograph red swirl and the ’70s-type jingle which have branded Global programming since 1974. In their place, after four months and $500,000, is what is officially called ‘the crescent,’ a red quarter moon underscoring the word Global on anything that moves: bugs, bumpers, crawls, trailers, testimonials, and six station ids complete with bouncing fruit, fish, fireworks and flowers.

They sound busy; they’re not. British advertising agency Lambie Narin, contracted after Global was seduced by their work for Disney, Channel 2 and the bbc, has created a clean look with a deliberate structuring of space around the logo (Frutiger, sans serif) in textured spots that communicate a single idea at a time a la the Bell Canada commercials.

Blessedly, the new prototype is not about to fill the screen and become a entity unto itself. The idea, says Neal, is to create something visually amusing but keep the focus on the programming.

‘We say here’s this great program, here’s who brought it to you, using an interesting tool which gives pause in a busy retail environment, then move on to the business of television. Sometimes you want to fancy it up. It’s better this way.’

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is a Global think behind the look’s gestation. ‘We began to play with what Global is about,’ says Neal. ‘It starts with the local stations which make up a greater community. The metaphor ­ the moving from simple to complex back to simple ­ is inaccessible on the screen but it became part of the way we talked about everything.’

Each promo starts, for example, with a single image (fish), takes on additional elements (more fish), then fades back to the single image which morphs into the logo.

All of the above means zero to the viewer. All of the above is generating quips about Global’s half-million-dollar banana. But it pulls the CanWest environment into the ’90s and is no small success given how easy it seems to complicate the process (see ontv, bbs, etc.). wic is reportedly working on a similar process after harmonizing its sales operations last year.

Global will allocate $1.5 to $2 million worth of airtime and media support to launching the new brand.

-A little left of The Bridal Path

A half-dozen characters, sexual tension, unwanted pregnancy, drugs (okay, marijuana ­ it’s Canada, after all), all before 4:30 on the tape. Gun shots at 6:04. Racism, the Ivory Tower, an interracial marriage, adultery, and stepparent angst by 15:16. Whatever reviews follow the release of Riverdale Sept. 22, it can’t be labeled lazy or unambitious.

The depth and breadth of the writing team attached is evident off the top, with Yan Moore (Degrassi, Road to Avonlea) helming a smooth and seamless interweaving of most of the series’ 27 characters in episode one of the new cbc primetime soap. Also on-project writing are Leila Basen (Emily of New Moon), Edwina Follows, M. Fried (Hurt Penguins), Dorothy Graham, Anita Kapila (Ready or Not), Jackie May (Liberty Street), Rebecca Schechter (North of 60), Barry Stevens, David Sutherland and Steve Wright.

The sets are grassroots and gorgeous; the texture, filmed on video instead of film to give it that Coronation Street feel, runs the risk of ‘looking Canadian’ instead.

The jury is also still out on scheduling. New episodes of the series will air Monday and Tuesday at 7 p.m., but have a good shot at keeping the Coronation devotees in front of cbc Sunday mornings as a one-hour package of the two half-hours are slotted at 11 a.m. behind the British soap.

Given the gloss of the media kit, the pubcaster is sparing no expense in marketing the program. Pulling out all the stops includes the creation of www.riverdale.ca, currently in development with Toronto-based multimedia company SNAP Interactive.

Riverdale Online will have its own cast of characters, script and actors in a soap opera set behind the scenes of the Riverdale studio. The Internet drama will chronicle the daily life events of a cast of fictional characters based on the real-life crew of grips and gaffers and studio designers, etc., with plot lines which parallel but are not limited to the series. This is very cool, taking the play-within-a-play concept to a dimension requiring far too much brain oomph for the August solstice.

Riverdale Online will premiere on Sept. 22 along with the series, with a new episode on successive Mondays over a 22-week period. The site will also have a section dedicated to events in the real-life Riverdale community.

-Rogers TV: festing everywhere, all the time

Rogers Community tv is blanketing the Toronto International Film Festival with an almost cpac approach to industry events.

With a 248-person-strong staff, 95% of whom are volunteers, Rogers is launching fstop, a Sept. 4-13 narrative of the festivities. Press conferences and Rogers Industry Centre Symposium ’97 sessions will be carried live and unabridged by a voice of reason.

Rushes, its new 30-minute daily magazine show will cover movie reviews, celebrity interviews and the star schmaltz that’s becoming a bigger part of festival activities. Daytime, a daily talk show, will package a Festival Edition airing daily at noon and 3 p.m.

Charles Wechsler, manager of programming and community relations, is overseeing operations. Bryan Peters is executive producing. The crew will work in shifts and includes a dozen reporters.

To tempt the masses to the underperused community channel, Rogers is making use of its commercial avail time on the American nets and began airing promotional spots for fstop last week on a&e, cnn, The Nashville Network and The Learning Channel. The onslaught is being accomplished out of existing resources with no sponsorship on tap.

The idea is neither branding for the channel nor to increase the cash flow, says Wechsler. ‘Absolutely it’s great programming which we’d like to be associated with Rogers, but essentially it gives the community channel the opportunity to take advantage of what we do best.’

-EXN moves to the big box

Discovery Channel is maximizing its information base with exn.tv, potentially the first inversion of the tv-to-Web norm.

After including the creation of the $5 million Exploration Network in its social benefits package when NetStar Communications took over the Labatt broadcast holdings, the Website was launched last October with much fanfare and is logging over 60,000 hits a month.

The half-hour exn.tv, produced in-house at Discovery, will be hosted by Paul Kaliciak who will take a weekly look at www happenings. The program airs Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., repeated Wednesday and Sunday afternoons.

In other specialty news, Nielsen People Metres is reporting summer audiences for Life Network up 50% over the same period last year. The network registered a 1.0 share in the 18+ demographic for the week of July 28. At least the murderous summer repeat schedules on the main nets are making someone happy.

The only point of interest on the People Metres this summer is Global’s Roar, a Braveheart-themed drama hitting number one on the chart. Airing Mondays in the 9 p.m. slot, the program is scoring with the 18-49 skew but falling flat with the tweens who are supposed to love swashbuckling and such. Fox is slot-shifting the program next month in search of the younger demo.