The Newsroom was a critical hit in Canada, where the satirical take on the inner workings of a public tv news program captured viewers with its audacious originality and local references. But it also established a cult following among pbs viewers in the u.s., and was even named by Time magazine one of the top 10 shows of ’97.

Audiences called for more after the mere 13 half-hours had its run.

‘As soon as there was all that my natural impulse was to walk away,’ says The Newsroom’s writer, director, producer and star Ken Finkleman.

‘That is what I have done all my life. When I was a kid and someone really wanted me to do something I refused to do it.’

Although Finkleman’s latest creation is another satire on the media, the six-ep, half-hour series – working title More Tears – is stylistically and thematically a far cry from his previous endeavor.

Still, Finkleman credits the success of The Newsroom as providing him with the mettle to experiment further with More Tears, which just wrapped a 37-day shoot in Toronto.

‘Mostly you live in terror all the time – is your show going to be any good, will it work or not?’ he says.

‘But when the show receives good press it gives you more confidence. You don’t have to satisfy anyone else’s interests except your own. You have the courage of your convictions. So I decided to do something that was completely different and not worry about what anyone thought.’

Seeking a cinematic look for More Tears, as opposed to the verite documentary style of Newsroom, Finkleman opted to shoot on film instead of video this time around.

Rather than the choppy, hand-held look achieved by dop Joan Hutton for The Newsroom, all the scenes are shot off a dolly by Gerald Packer whose work has a filmic quality. The pacing is slower, shots linger and scenes are played out longer, explains Finkleman.

Although the antics of the self- and sex-obsessed Newsroom character George Findlay returns, More Tears offers a far darker portrait of the media.

Finkleman doesn’t consider the show a comedy. ‘I can’t imagine that there is anything people will actually laugh out loud at,’ he says.

‘It is a satire of the need the media has to build a narrative into their stories – looking for good and bad guys and emotional impact as opposed to approaching news in a sober, detached way.’

Findlay is a hack field producer at a network news magazine show. In an episode titled ‘Symbols,’ Finkleman says he explores the way the news feels compelled to give symbolic value to stories. As an example, he points to how the media made Princess Diana into the ultimate symbol of the selfless caregiver, the victim of a bad marriage and, essentially, a saint-like being. In the script, as a news story continually shifts focus, the press keeps laying on new symbolic meanings.

In the final three half-hours, Findlay, who Finkleman describes as ‘a corrupt, exploitive but damaged character,’ decides to make a movie about himself, and Shift Magazine editor Evan Solomon is cast in the role.

Interwoven in all the storylines are the three women in Findlay’s life: his philosophical wife, played by Arsinee Khanjian (incidentally real hubby Atom Egoyan makes a cameo in an episode); a girlfriend (Lou Thornton), who like Findlay is interested only in sex not emotional connection; and an artist (Larissa Laskin), who wants his love which he is unable to give.

Leah Pinsent (Little Kidnappers) plays a reporter who works with Findlay.

Moving outside the confines of the cbc, More Tears took to the street, shooting almost entirely on location.

Production began on a challenging note Nov. 17, with a week of night shoots at a farm where cast and crew waded through a cold, mucky pig field, had a truck flip over in a ditch and a boom stuck up to its axles in mud.

Once again, Finkleman is writer/director/producer as well as lead actor.

‘It’s exhausting,’ he admits, but says in many ways wearing all these hats makes production run a lot smoother.

‘It just means you have fewer people to argue with.’

But coproducer Peter Meyboon is clearly the one who keeps track of the money.

cbc coughed up double the budget of The Newsroom – roughly $2 million (the many in-house services cbc provides makes budgets relatively lower than those of independent productions).

Asked where he funneled most of the increased budget, Finkleman acts unaware.

‘I don’t keep track of the money. I just spend it… and then when they tell me there is no more left and we have to cut stuff, I just ignore them.’

Maybe this is where the rumor that the show has gone way over budget comes from?

But Meyboom, who collaborated with Finkleman on the four-part series Married Life, produced for Atlantis and Comedy Central in 1996, as well as The Newsroom, dismisses this with a laugh.

‘It’s a great rumor, people are saying that Ken has gone mad. I hate to tell you this, but we are completely on budget.’

He adds that the bulk of the cash is being funneled into the huge cast lined up for the show.

The Newsroom went through numerous titles during production, including 1300 Buried Alive, and Finkleman is still not sure More Tears will stick for the new show. He is currently toying with a couple of other ideas which he isn’t ready to reveal.

More Tears derives from what Finkleman says the media in essence is all about.

‘Bring on the tears, the more tears the better,’ he explains. ‘If the media find people in tears at the sight of the Oklahoma bombing or parents of murdered kids crying, I guarantee those shots will make it on the news. They appeal to the gut, to emotions, to baser impulses, not logic and rationality.’

Meyboom and Finkleman are again producing the show in-house at the cbc although they did discuss forming their own indie company and retaining ownership in the show.

But with the pubcaster offering to pay the entire shot, Meyboom says they couldn’t refuse the chance to concentrate on creative rather than financial issues, delving quickly into production instead of spending a couple years piecing together the budget.

Furthermore, they do not anticipate international sales to be very lucrative.

Complete creative autonomy was another plus.

‘I don’t think we could have made this show more outrageous than we did,’ says Meyboom. ‘In fact, it probably would have been harder if we were an independent because other broadcasters and funding agencies would have been involved and had an opinion.’

cbc has slotted More Tears to premier Monday, March 30 at 9:30 p.m. after This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The following two half-hours will continue in this slot, but the final three parts are being edited together into a 90-minute special skedded for Sunday, April 19 at 8 p.m.

Meyboom is moving on to produce a slate of mows for Atlantis which will keep him busy for the next year.

So what does Finkleman have up his sleeve next?

‘I am going to tell you a little secret,’ he says. ‘The cbc has this beautiful little private screening room – it is gorgeous, with nice soft theater seats. I am going to ask the cbc to give me some development money to screen 50 to 100 foreign movies in 35mm print.’

And then?

‘I don’t know, maybe out of that something will come.