*Traders moves to early prime on CBC winter sked

In keeping with its new ‘four seasons’ programming strategy, the cbc has shuttled the winter primetime schedule, bouncing Traders to 7 p.m. Thursdays and Wind At My Back from Sunday into Wednesday. North of 60 and Gullages have exited the schedule. A decision on renewals isn’t expected until late February at the earliest.

Treating January through April as a season unto itself, changes were official as of Jan. 4, although new programs will phase in throughout the month. Amongst them are Twitch City, which has a lovely little spot behind This Hour Has 22 Minutes Monday at 9:30 p.m. Since Twitch has a six-episode run, the slot could be home to the series otherwise known as ‘The Next Finkleman Project’ come mid-March.

Tracey Takes On, the remaining foreign piece of the Corp’s primetime ‘last’ season, is no longer with us, replaced by Comics in the opening half-hour to 22 Minutes. (Latest irresistible 22 Minutes via Cathy Jones: ‘The Genies weren’t broadcast at all this year. They got their highest ratings ever.’)

Also on Monday night, Just For Laughs outtakes are now being ably left in the hands of The Comedy Network while cbc launches It’s A Living at 7:30. Produced by CBC Manitoba, the press bumf says: ‘Host Peter Jordan celebrates the world of Canadians at work by taking the viewer inside a particular job. With his own off-beat spin, Jordan performs the job, highlighting the intricacies of everything from the thrill of dog catching (although he only catches bears), to being a star on the set of The Royal Canadian Air Farce.’ Hold on to your hats.

By the look of the new season, cbc is attempting to turn the 7-8 p.m. hour into a drama haven. Behind the placement of Riverdale at 7 Mondays and Tuesdays, Sullivan Entertainment’s Wind At My Back is taking the hour on Wednesdays and Atlantis Communications’ Traders on Thursdays after a rough go Fridays at 9 p.m. Emily of New Moon, the object of copious tv guide covers and much good ink this month, is in the hour on Sunday nights.

Life & Times has replaced Traders on Fridays at 9 p.m. On the somewhat schizophrenic Wednesday night lineup, an 8 p.m. comedy hour consisting of an Air Farce repeat followed by Mr. Bean is sandwiched between Wind At My Back and Black Harbour.

In other programming news, ctv has picked up the national rights for season breakaway Ally McBeal. It’s been airing on Baton stations in Vancouver and Alberta since September but is now going cross-system.

*SFA’s Marshall in N.Y.

The ctv television variety special Amanda Marshall from SFA Productions has finalist status at the New York Festival’s 40th annual International Television Programming Competition.

Broadcast on ctv in May, it was the first production from sfa under Sandra Faire and Trisa Dayot.

The winner will be announced at the awards banquet in New York, Jan. 16.

*Cold Squad on deck

Before it’s property of the mainstream critics, a couple of thoughts on Cold Squad.

Premiering across the Baton system on Jan. 23, the drama is the beneficiary of some spectacular casting. Julie Stewart (North of 60, Letter from Francis) as Sergeant Ali McCormick has an infinitely watchable contained yet warm presence and Michael Hogan (Solitaire, Diplomatic Immunity) as the burned-out, sarcastic Detective Tony Logozzo is often engaging. We’re on the ground when he delivers ‘You look like death on a stick,’ despite the fact the episode’s theme is pedophilia and that post-Christmas death-on-a-stick feeling hovers.

Production-wise, the first two episodes look ’90s, smooth, clean, even identifiably Vancouver. The murder is set up in the two minutes before the opening credits roll, which works well. The opener itself is also rather cool. The plot lines for the first two episodes, one a child killer and the other a father seeking revenge on the man he thinks killed his daughter, manage to keep the viewer curious on the whodunit end through to the tape’s conclusion.

Having said that, there are some things mia. First, although the plots are interesting, there’s only ever one thing going on. Zero subplots. Second, and more important, there isn’t any identifiable character expansion for the cop protagonists. No tortured pasts, no inter-office sexual tension, no throwbacks from a 12-step program. Logozzo sneaks outside for the odd smoke, technically delinquent in our true and native land, but probably not enough to cut it with Friday night crowd-surfing at 10 after Millennium.

There are, however, nine more episodes in which dimensions may develop. As for its Friday night time slot, Cold Squad is up against 20/20, Homicide: Life on the Street and a Seinfeld repeat on Fox. Hell, there are no good time slots anymore. Onward ho.

Cold Squad is a Keatley MacLeod/Atlantis Films coproduction, produced in association with Baton. Executive producers are Julia Keatley, Anne Marie La Traverse, Matt MacLeod and Seaton McLean. Philip Keatley is the producer.

For the record, Atlantis’ Earth: Final Conflict is off the schedule until Cold Squad wraps its 11-week run.

*CHUM picks up Vidatron series Dead Man’s Gun

CHUM Television is in for Vidatron Entertainment’s Dead Man’s Gun, a 22-episode western anthology series billed as ‘a cross between Gunsmoke and the Twilight Zone.’

Created by Howard and Ed Spielman, Dead Man’s Gun is produced by Vidatron’s Larry Sugar. Henry Winkler is executive producer. The series wrapped shooting in Vancouver at the end of November and has been airing on the Showtime Network in the u.s.

Dead Man’s Gun was recently nominated for three CableACE Awards, including best series, best director and best actor. chum premiered the program Jan. 9.

chum has also signed on with Vidatron’s First Wave, a sci-fi series currently in production with Pearson Television, with Francis Ford Coppola exec producing. First Wave is destined to premier on Space: The Imagination Station.

*Promotion bandwagon

TVOntario is launching a new publication for children. Available in both French and English, Kidsnews will target ages four to 12 and include program and personality close-ups, mazes, puzzles, etc. The book will be part of the Family Pack bonus, a three-times-a-year mailing of games, stickers, washable tattoos and growth charts available with a tvo family membership at $80 per year.

Also on the promotion trail is History Television, which has signed a series of initiatives with several Canadian companies and media outlets.

Along with the producers of Trivial Pursuit, Horn Abbot and Hasbro Canada, History is in the process of developing an online version of the game for the History Website.

Sequences from the Rick Mercer-hosted It Seems Like Yesterday will be seen by passengers in flight with Air Canada, which purchases about 1,500 hours of programming every year.

But the best exposure could come from its deal with Targeted Audience Programming. Historical vignettes will appear on the TAP TV Network, airing in 428 Brewers’ Retail outlets throughout Ontario.