*Creatures great and small

The 60-day rule: yet another reason to push the new specialty launch back to Oct. 17.

While all are at the mercy of cable weasels, the less sexy of the specialty channel offerings are among the more vulnerable as the cablecos dial-shift to make room for the inductees. The crtc stipulates a broadcasting service must receive 60 days notice that its spectrum position is being realigned. Almost 60 days before the Oct. 17 target, Vision tv has been informed it’s moving from channel 24 to what is surely a coveted place on Ontario screens: channel 60.

This is not the end of pre-tier three channel bouncing and not particularly inspiring for the tier two specialties. Consumers just figured out where they are. Station ids will likely be burned into the screen this season. Fridge magnets listing who, what and where might be an idea come Oct. 17. Courtesy of the cable guys, of course.

In the interim, Vision is, as president Fil Fraser says, working towards a stronger profile. Increased promotion budget, press lunches, program ratings data and a wide-scale celebration of Vision’s 10th season on Sept. 29 are on the agenda, as is a bit of a discussion of Vision’s role in the production industry.

The Toronto-based service (offices in Vancouver and Halifax) isn’t cash-rich. Presale financing typically ranges between $1,000 and $10,000 per program; coproductions could push upwards of $15,000; the acquisition budget runs $2,000 for an hour-long program, $1,000 for a half-hour, with Vision taking rights for 10 cable days over five years.

It is, however, with the commission systematically rejecting pitches for single-denominational religious cable channels over the past two years, the only access facility in Canada for multifaith programming.

It’s also in six million households, the advantage of which was evident in April when Vision and Bravo! conducted a simulcast experiment with Songs of the Soul: The Monks of St. Benoit de Lac. Vision captured more than three times the Bravo! audience. Hence the lack of tier one/tier two simulcasts over the last six months and a competitive advantage for producers aiming to maximize potential audience reach.

The spring ’97 Nielsen Media Research data places Vision’s reach fifth among the Canadian specialty services with an average minute audience of 47,000, viewers 2+ behind tsn, ytv and Newsworld and Discovery respectively.

Given the fragmenting broadcast universe and increasing programming costs, Vision, like tvontario, may begin to play a greater role in presale purchases. It’s taking part, for example, in a prebuy with History Television for the 1998 bbc documentary series History of the Devil, which sounds spectacular and expensive. The little pieces which have always been essential to the Canadian tv business are becoming more, not less, important.

*In process

Toronto International Film Festival lunacy is everywhere. Art imitating life imitating art will spin on its axis on an upcoming segment of Undercurrents where a crew of cbc reporters are making other reporters itchy as we speak.

Seems Undercurrents is doing a piece on how the media treats director Atom Egoyan, who, in case one has been living under a rock, is premiering The Sweet Hereafter. A recent at-home session with Egoyan saw a camera crew from the private nets setting up lights and camera while the cbc posse positioned all around them filming the filming. Note to producers this festival week: bring a power bar or two. It’s survival of the fittest for electrical outlets.

In other tv buzz, who will be replacing Globe & Mail television critic John Haslett Cuff is top of mind. The answer may be evident as Playback hits the stand, but at press time names making the circ list included Toronto freelance writers Marni Jackson and Johanna Schneller. Ellen Vanstone, subbing in for Cuff over the summer, is thought the front-runner. Meanwhile, all are pondering what particular kind of ‘investigative features’ Cuff is pursuing.

Finally, what would it cost to get a bold red line running through your program lineup on the primetime grids published in the tv guides? Just asking.

*Forever Knight’s cult of immortality Showcased

Showcase Television has picked up a second window on the long-held Baton Broadcasting series Forever Knight. Black Harbour’s Geraint Wyn Davies plays a 13th century vampire stuck in the modern world and trying to repress his natural tendencies.

According to the program synopsis, ‘With each passing day, he learns to deal with the rage that torments his soul, bringing him closer to mortality.’ Oy.

Forever Knight’s regular slot will be Saturdays at 7 p.m., with episodes repeating Mondays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. for the month of September.

Also new this season to Showcase is Canadian action drama Fly By Night, a one-hour series produced in 1991 by Alliance and Western Sky Productions featuring three operators of Slick Air, a small charter airline in Vancouver. Airing in the 10 p.m. slot Wednesdays, the series stars Shannon Tweed, David Elliot and Francois Guetary.

Doing its bit to capitalize on the tiff hoopla, seven Canadian films find a home on Showcase this month. Deepa Metha’s Sam and Me premiered Sept. 5. The following three Fridays at 10 p.m. will telecast Yves Simoneau’s Perfectly Normal, John Kent Harrison’s Beautiful Dreamers and Jon Hess’ Watchers. Sundays will showcase Kootenai Brown, Going Home and Two Solitudes directed by Lionel Chetwynd.

*You’re not going to miss all this, are you?

The Atlantic division of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council tapped mitv on the wrist this month, charging a breach of Article 5.1 of the cab Violence Code after an episode of The X-Files enraged a viewer.

It’s not difficult to identify which episode. Just think of the most repulsive X-Files you had the pleasure of witnessing last year and that’s it. Clues like an ax through a man’s throat or a person impaled on a spear don’t narrow it down. Perhaps the plot synopsis will bring it back. In the complainant’s words:

‘I was stunned and horrified when it became perfectly clear that three men were having sex with their limbless mother. They kept her strapped to a piece of wood under the bed.’

The cbsc found the violent scenes were integral to plot and character development and did not constitute ‘gratuitous.’ The viewer complained that the series targets children, but the episode was skedded outside the watershed hour and therefore is not deemed ‘aimed at children.’

The council did decide, however, that a viewer’s discretion warning was necessary and is subsequently requiring mitv to announce on-air within 30 days that it has breached the Violence Code and should have preceded the episode with a ‘mature audience’ advisory.

The mature audience should be advised to suck back some Gravol before investing an hour in this one. With the volume of X-Files in syndication in the Canadian market this year, there’ll be ample opportunity to catch the repeat.