*Specialty ‘postmortem’ looming

Anyone who isn’t excited about television right now doesn’t have the virus and should goeth into the world and find their virus. What a ride, this month.

It is, at press time, almost Oct. 17, and the launch of tier three has just been heralded by a shameless exercise in promotion from vision.com.

As you read, the media are recovering from the sight of vision.com president Richard Stursberg walking around the Toronto-based News Theatre, backdropped by a 16-screen video wall, introducing one by one the new specialties penetrating living rooms across the country this week. Better than Donahue, but who are we to be cynical? It’s a damn lovely lineup, particularly those Canadian channels. You go, boy.

More programming highlights are surfacing. Space: The Imagination Station is taking shape with spin, a daily space information and news segment, and The Conspiracy Guy, a rapid-fire rant on the ‘peculiar connections of our day and age.’ X-Files is on twice daily m/f, themed movie marathons are on the sked including the Alien and Planet of the Apes series, Pest Week (The Fly, Empire of the Ants, Frogs), a fantasy series including Beauty and the Beast, and a selection of Japanese animation including Quest for Odin, A Wind Named Amnesia, The Venus Hunters and Dominion Tank Police, i & ii.

When the hoopla is over and consumers are sufficiently seduced by variety and choice and packaging and new branding, word is there will be a crtc-organized ‘postmortem,’ a pow wow gathering together the regulator, the cablecos and the specialties for a little chat.

Michael McCabe and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters went to the press with their letter to crtc chair Francoise Bertrand pointing out the inequities in the channel package selected by the cable companies (Ted Rogers reportedly put in a personal call to McCabe on the subject.)

In a bold move from the Specialty and Premium Television Association, president Jane Logan too filed a letter to Bertrand, pointing out that the mechanics of the launch are having ‘an extremely disruptive and damaging impact on many Canadian licensees and disregards the Commission’s access policy.’

Among Logan’s points:

a) that Newsworld is moving to channels 44 and 59 on Shaw systems in Western Canada and Scarborough, Ont., respectively, and that viewers with older televisions will not be able to access them;

b) that channels are being dropped with less than 30 days notice and that tmn and MoviePix will not be available in Ottawa as of Oct. 17;

c) Treehouse, owned by Shaw, will apparently launch on basic on Shaw; and

d) that ‘other cable activities fall outside the realm of fair play, including insisting on an unprecedented level of marketing fees for the [soon to be launched] Canadian services.’

The letter ends with a request from the sptv for ‘your urgent intervention to restore order in the marketplace. Within the next few days, the cable industry will finalize plans, that, if left unchallenged, will have negative impacts on viewers and existing services that will not have been foreseen by the Commission.’

Responding mid-October, Bertrand makes the point that there are ‘a number of positive elements to the upcoming Oct. 17 launch, in particular the significant number of new Canadian services that will be made available to consumers.’

However, Bertrand says she is ‘concerned about a number of matters described in your letter, including those that may be related to a lack of appropriate consultation between the cable licensees and existing pay and specialty services.’

She ends with an invitation to a closed-door forum, as yet without a date attached.

*This hour isn’t long enough

While specialty joy runneth amuck, on the mainstream nets the first official score in the programming strategy department is clearly cbc’s Friday night comedy package. One pretty much has to go to bed at 9 o’clock because the night just isn’t going to get any better than the 8 p.m. hour with the comedy troupes.

Although it’s hard to top the Rick Mercer monologue (Mercer to would-be b.c. separatist Pat Carney: ‘Go ahead and separate. Call yourself the Independent Republic of British Columbia and then open fire on the AmericansÉ’), both the Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes teams had particular fun with television industry issues this month, the ratings system and cbc’s replaying The National at 11 p.m. in particular.

Rating codes suggestions: bm: This program contains four hours of commentary from Ralph Benmergui. bs: A politician is about to make a speech. The maple leaf-edged frame containing David Hasselhoff’s head, self-evident. Finally, the letters crtc symbolizing obsolete and a waste of taxpayers’ money. Guess the Newsworld decision isn’t going over well.

Mary Walsh’s deranged diatribe on seeing Peter Mansbridge again at 11 p.m. was priceless (‘Like I was caught in a hideous loop, some unending deja vu driving the public right to the edge of barking lunacyÉ’). Roger Abbott playing Mansbridge and informing viewers they can see The National again and again and again (‘The National at 4 a.m. For People That Got Up for a Tinkle and Couldn’t Get Back to Sleep’) equally so. It doesn’t translate well on paper, but you get the idea.

Small aside: The mock Yeltsin interview had its moments. This Hour’s Cathy Jones asks him why he’s not ready to step down: ‘I can’t. Two-thirds of my organization is still run by criminals.’

‘The Mafia?’ asks Jones.

‘No,’ says Yeltsin. ‘The cable companies.’

The season premiere of Air Farce Oct. 3 recorded 1.4 million viewers; This Hour, the Monday original repeated Friday at 8:30, 764,000. Stay tuned for how much of the audience Traders retains at 9 p.m.

*MeTV surfaces

Rogers’ ad campaign for tier three launched last week with a double-page, four-color spread for MeTV leaping out of the weekend papers. My word.

‘Introducing MeTV. 16 incredible new channels that are all about you.’ Consumer-friendly to the nth degree, there’s actually a lot to like about the presentation. We’re not particularly sure who that basketball player is, but the concept is fresh, the layout busy enough to hold the eye but the text minimized to prevent brain overload and subsequent page-flipping.

To be fair, the five channels getting extra play via pictures – The Comedy Network, hgtv, Headline Sports, Space: The Imagination Station and History Television and Family Channel – are Canadian (technically Family counts). Even Vision tv has a standalone circle blob informing people it can now be found on channel 59. But surely those eeny weeny station logos at the bottom of the spread can’t be going over well among the channels.

The broadcasters have been going the distance on-air for their own new puppies, with screen time expected to skyrocket over the next three months. History Television’s tag line, ‘It’s about time,’ is nice word play, the visuals for Outdoor Life are gorgeous, and the deadpan ‘Time well wasted’ pitch for The Comedy Network is excellent, but between the new fall programs and the specialties, viewers don’t know which end is up (Heck, we’re not even sure who’s got what and where it is.) It’ll be interesting to see which one of the tier three group cuts through first with a television guide cover story.

Speaking of the guides, good grief they’re fat. Promotions budgets must be astronomical. Starweek is running 90 pages, The Toronto Sun’s TV Magazine between 62 and 70 pages, with Global taking full pages every weekday, Baton and cbc in for half-pages, ONtv, Life Network and wtn all with increased presence. chum is piggybacking Baton’s half-page for Earth: Final Conflict on Friday night with a half-page for Space: The Imagination Station and its launch telecast of Mars Attacks.

*Miscellany

Ratings-wise, Baton Broadcasting is singing the praises of Atlantis Films’ Earth: Final Conflict. Premiering Sept. 26, Earth captured 450,000 for cfto, with the highest share coming from the male 18-34 demo at 50%. Overall, adults 18-43 registered a 38% share, adults 25-54 a 26% share. The numbers were enough to win its time slot.

At Global Television, the wacky South Park is being pulled out of Thursday primetime and slotted into Fridays at midnight. The press bumpf makes the point the program will run uncut in its time period. That was a cut version airing Thursday nights? Heavens. The first Friday offering Oct. 17 ran ‘Big Gay Al and His Big Gay Boat Ride.’ ‘Weight gain 4000.’ Oct. 24 guest stars Kathy Lee Gifford.

Finally, calls to Playback from two rather frightening individuals requesting information on The Horror Channel this week had us somewhat muddled. The answer is that cbc execs all crazy with specialty channel applications have reserved Oct. 31 to air The Horror Channel. All Horror, All The Time, a 30-minute spoof on specialty channels delivered by Nova Scotia’s Jest In Time Theatre comedy troupe. codco’s Greg Malone makes a guest appearance as Count Dracula and Carole Pope as Zombie Bride. Apparently the promos are working, kind of.