– CBC drama sked changes

After waiting for the American and Canadian private broadcasting schedules to settle in, the cbc has moved DaVinci’s Inquest, Black Harbour and Life & Times to new time slots.

DaVinci (Barna-Alper Productions/Chris Haddock), originally slotted for Mondays at 9 p.m., will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m., starting Oct. 7. The coroner’s office drama is now scheduled against Party of Five (Global), The Drew Carey Show and a new sitcom, Secret Lives of Men (ctv), and a one-hour comedy, To Have and To Hold (wic).

‘Party of Five skews very young so it doesn’t conflict at all with DaVinci,’ says Slawko Klymkiw, executive director, network programming for cbc.

Black Harbour (Fogbound Films) will move from Wednesdays at 9 p.m. to Fridays in the same time slot, starting Oct. 9.

Black Harbour (Fogbound Films) will move from Wednesdays at 9 pm to Fridays in the same timeslot, starting October 9.

Klymkiw says it’s a strong drama following two very strong comedic lead-ins between 8 and 9 p.m. on Friday night (in this case, Royal Canadian Air Farce and The Red Green Show). And while it’s not exactly flow, he says it ‘made enormous sense,’ adding that the move might give Black Harbour ‘the boost it needs to get in the million category.’

Also docked in Black Harbour’s slot is Dateline (ctv), Millennium (Global) and new cop drama, Buddy Faro (wic).

Life and Times, previously scheduled for Fridays at 9 p.m., will air Mondays at 9 p.m. starting Oct. 5, up against Ally McBeal on ctv, Caroline and the City and The Benben Show on Global and NFL Football on wic.

– City launches celeb show, dahling

StarTelevision, a Citytv ‘original’ launching Oct. 17, was created to serve two purposes, says City’s Marcia Martin: to showcase Canadian celebs and help build an identity for chum’s waiting-to-be-licensed entertainment specialty channel, Star: The Entertainment Information Station.

‘We really are anxious to launch [the channel] as soon as possible,’ says Martin, vp, production. ‘Obviously, we wanted to do production for the channel itself, and we were gearing up for it for this year, possibly this fall, but it didn’t happen. Not to stop the momentum, we decided to launch [the program] anyway. It’s a good kind of kick-off point for when the station is launched next year.’

StarTelevision, as it is billed, ‘talks to and about Canada’s famous faces as well as bringing you the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.’

It will cover actors, athletes, comedians, musicians and dealmakers. Program segments will include StarWatch, a newsy paparazzi-style reel of stars at parties and premieres; Rising Stars, which will focus on people on the verge of stardom; Star Close-Up, an in-depth look at the stars; Stars-On-Stars, where stars interview each other; and Idol Chatter, for which stars chat about a particular theme such as what they miss about Canada.

The celeb show’s 26 half-hour episodes will air on Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., following a lineup of Fashion Television, Ooh La La and MT-MovieTelevision.

Martin says StarTelevision has ‘the same flavor’ that appeals to the 25-49 age bracket, and the programs ‘tend to have the same makeup of audience, almost 50/50 female/male.’

The show will also be hostless and have no on-air correspondents.

‘We’re celebrating Canada’s stars,’ Martin explains, ‘and they can certainly carry the show on their own.’ The show will use a layer of visual information and graphics along with the pictures. StarTelevision ‘will have a personality and attitude,’ she says. ‘We hope to have fun with that actually.’

Speaking of celebs, the air-kiss event of the year, Festival Schmooze 98, will air live on City Friday, Sept. 11 at 10 p.m. The hour-and-a-half show, presented by MT-MovieTelevision, will offer half-hour highlight packages on Sunday, Sept. 13 at 8:30 p.m. and Thursday, Sept. 17 at 8:30 p.m.

In other City programming news, the station has added 12 half-hours of hbo’s Sex in the City, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, and 22 one-hours of v.i.p, starring Pamela Anderson as the head of a Hollywood protection agency.

Sex in the City debuts Friday, Sept. 18 at 11:35 p.m. and v.i.p. on Monday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m.

– Riverdale revamp

The one-hour Canuck soap Riverdale will bubble with more sex and violence in its new season. But the show’s executive producer Linda Schuyler of Epitome Pictures says that while she’s ‘happy’ with its time slot (Thursday at 7 p.m.), it’s also ‘a problem.’

‘A Canadian audience is not used to watching first-run drama at 7 o’clock,’ she says. ‘The traditional North American viewing habit is to start watching at 8:00.’

The show, however, pulls in a lot of soap addicts, especially when it is repeated on Sundays at 11 a.m., after the enormously popular British soap Coronation Street.

‘And the numbers show it,’ Schuyler comments. Last season, Riverdale averaged about 400,000 viewers on Sunday morning and around 300,000 for its 7 p.m. slots on Monday and Tuesday. Although that means 700,000 viewers are watching Riverdale every week, ‘I don’t know how many more people are available at 7 to watch drama,’ Schuyler says.

She also mentions that Riverdale is on ‘available time’ on Thursday night. ‘I don’t mind being there, particularly when we have the Sunday repeat,’ Schuyler comments. ‘But it is hard to get a realistic expectation of numbers, so it will never deliver in available time the way a primetime show will.’

Slawko Klymkiw, cbc’s executive director, network programming, says that, generally, all cbc 7 to 8 p.m. slots are ‘available.’ The Sunday slot is ‘reserve time.’

‘I’m happy with the 7:00 spot,’ Schuyler says, ‘because I think if we can crack it, it will offer an alternative to Jeopardy [which airs on ctv at 7:30 p.m. following Wheel of Fortune] and Entertainment Tonight [on Global].’

Last year, the weekday slots had room for improvement. ‘We looked at the statistics and demographics,’ says Klimkiw. ‘The crossover of the audience of Monday and Tuesday wasn’t high.’

The cbc decided to run the show in two consecutive blocks so viewers could see it on one evening. ‘We think that ostensibly that will bring the audience up,’ he comments.

Riverdale returns Oct. 1.

– Comedy rakes in South Park ratings

Thanks to our disgusting-but-endearing little South Park friends, The Comedy Network has announced ‘an unparalleled’ 302,000 viewers (2+) per average minute for the episode ‘Cartman’s Mom is a Dirty Slut’ on Aug. 20. The show aired the last night of the net’s three-week South Park marathon, which averaged 186,307 viewers per average minute per day.

– New name for Mercer show

Rick Mercer’s six-episode satire on the Canadian film industry, formerly called Casting Couch (aka The Industry), has a new name: Made in Canada.

Produced by Halifax’s Salter Street Films in association with the cbc, Casting Couch was always a working title, says publicist Maureen O’Donnell.

Mercer stars as a script reader at a publicly traded entertainment company who claws his way up the ladder to become head of television. The show debuts on cbc Monday, Oct. 5 at 8:30 p.m.