Talk about built-in marketing.

cbc’s Drop the Beat, touted as North America’s first interactive dramatic television series, exemplifies the convergence of six different media for the first time on television and offers viewers with set-top boxes a glimpse of the future. The prospect may sound dated, but the reality is so avante garde, rival-caster ctv was even compelled to cover the launch on Feb. 7 – hosted by ExtendMedia, the company responsible for the show’s companion website and itv (interactive television) component.

Demonstrating the true meaning of digital renaissance, the 13-part, half-hour series, created and exec produced by Back Alley Films principals Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell (Talk 16, Straight Up), combines Web, cd, virtual radio, streaming video and itv with a cutting-edge program about a couple of twentysomethings who face the challenges of producing their first campus radio show.

Starring Merwin Mondesir as a budding music promoter and Mark Taylor as a university business student, the series centres on the hip-hop music scene and the rhetoric of ‘street culture.’ It has also spawned a soundtrack, to be released by Universal Music on Feb. 29, as well as a dictionary to help cbc viewers understand the esoteric dialect of the show.

‘It’s aimed at a younger market who are used to receiving information in a multimedia format,’ says Mitchell, who is also a writer and director on the series.

Coproduced by Alliance Atlantis Communications, the tv portion of the series is budgeted at $370,000 per episode. The budget for the interactive components is undisclosed, but the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, which accounts for about 50% of that budget, contributed $120,000.

The itv component allows the ‘Webtv’ user to scroll content within the tv mode, participate in online forums, purchase the soundtrack cd and other paraphernalia, and access behind-the-scenes cast information, contests and cbc program schedule information.

Features of the website include a weekly virtual radio show, cast info, live chat events, message boards, audio and video clips, desktop patterns and hip-hop community-building features. It also streams video preview clips from the show, plus special clips of musical guest stars like Choclair, Maestro and Rahzel.

‘Niche programming is key for this kind of technology to work,’ says aac honcho Michael MacMillan.

Even though, he says, only about 1% of viewers actually have the set-top boxes necessary to experience the digital enhancement of Webtv, he is confident Drop the Beat will create a greater demand through the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

Although he would not comment specifically on any digitally enhanced tv projects in the works, he says, ‘It would make the most sense on the Food Network, hgtv and Life.’

‘It’s the interactivity that differentiates it from a standalone product,’ says ExtendMedia ceo Keith Kocho, adding: ‘We’re attracting an audience we couldn’t access through conventional broadcast tv. Hopefully we’ll exploit it to the u.s. – that’s the mind-set we have to adopt.’

Meantime, Kocho says he has three Webtv deals pending in the u.s. and he’ll ‘probably’ be doing more work with aac.

‘Now the question is: what’s the next step of thinking? We might, in the future, have a Back Alley channel,’ says Mitchell. ‘But the hardware still needs work,’ adds Lundman.

Asked why Drop the Beat makes sense on the cbc, as opposed to a younger, more hip outlet, Mitchell says, ‘Who else is doing risk-taking programming? And anyway, viewers are not as loyal to broadcasters as they used to be, so as long as they know about it, they’re going to tune in.’

Now that Lundman and Mitchell have taken the leap to itv, they both agree they could never go back.

They are currently in development with Galafilm on a women’s erotic series for Showcase. Entitled Exposed, the 13-part, half-hour series is based on short erotic stories written by women. ‘It’s tailor-made for interactive,’ says Mitchell.

Writers on Drop the Beat include Vanz Chapman, David Sutherland, Dennise Fordham, Derek Schreyer, Tony Di Franco, Kris Lefcoe and Graham Clegg.

Directors include Daniel Grou, T.W. Peacocke, Paul Fox, Eleanore Lindo and Michael De Carlo.

Christine Shipton is the aac exec producer.

*More on Interactive TV with Space Challenger

What happens when you put Bob Vila, Martha Stewart and Danny Lipford in a room with Regis Philbin? You get ‘Who Wants to be a Space Challenger.’

Such was the opening of a pitch that made aspiring Toronto producer Jonathan Block-Verk the winner of the first ‘Microsoft TV Interactive Pitch’ at natpe.

He won for his Space Challenger pitch, a home-improvement game show that requires three contestants to compete by coming up with the best renovation and decoration scheme for a similar size room, given a set budget.

Home viewers participate in an online version of the game, using a picture of the room and clicking to change the room’s features. Viewers can also enter their renovated rooms for a chance to win a grand prize and buy products used for the reno straight off the tv.

The series consists of 65, half-hour episodes – five a week for 13 weeks.

Likewise, each set of contestants has five episodes to complete their projects.

Microsoft will put out up to us$50,000 toward the development of the interactive side of the pilot, which Block-Verk is currently putting together with production partner ExtendMedia.

‘As long as I pull everything together and they approve, Microsoft will put up the money,’ says Block-Verk.

Since natpe, ExtendMedia, where Block-Verk is currently setting up shop, has committed roughly $50,000 to development, he says.

And Lipford, host of Today’s Homeowner – the third-rated home-improvement show in the u.s., has expressed interest in jumping on board.

Although the judges at the pitch session and Microsoft can’t guarantee Block-Verk’s idea will turn into a tv show, they are committed to helping him set up meetings with the likes of Columbia TriStar.

‘[Microsoft] wants to promote its technology so they’re using me to say ‘Look, we’re committed to building content,’ says Block-Verk.

By promoting interactive tv content, Microsoft creates an increasing demand for their set-top boxes….

Meantime, Block-Verk is more than happy to assist the computer company in achieving its goals.

‘Interactive tv is a whole other ball of wax and if you’re not on this bus, you’ll be left at the station.’

*A Scattering of Seeds returns to History

A third season of A Scattering of Seeds: The Creation of Canada, produced by Toronto-based White Pine Pictures, is set to launch on History Television March 15, and History has already placed its order for season four.

And what better timing, given the Ministry of Immigration’s recent announcement that it plans to almost double immigration levels in Canada to 400,000 a year.

Budgeted at $1.4 million, the 13-part, half-hour doc series profiles unknown Canadian immigrants who have made an understated but significant contribution to Canada.

For example, the first episode of the season features two champion ballroom dancers who immigrated to Canada with their children to escape the Soviet invasion of their Czech homeland. In pursuit of their dream to become professional skating coaches, they moved from province to province, until they discovered 14-year-old Kurt Browning and turned him into a national figure skating champion.

Series locations range from Halifax to Vancouver Island. Each episode is written and directed by an independent documentary filmmaker who is often addressing his/her own ancestry.

Some of Canada’s top doc makers are involved in the project, including Stavros Stavrides, Sylvia Sweeney, Tom Radford and Lindalee Tracey, who is also the author of the book of the same name, published in December by McArthur & Company.

‘Each episode is sexy, lively and relevant to today…a real anthology series,’ says producer Peter Raymont.

In addition to being distributed to schools and libraries across the country, the series also runs on Air Canada, an increasingly hot platform for Canadian film.

Ten episodes were shot in English and three in French. Reseau de l’Information has first-window rights on the French side. Additional window holders include Vison tv, Knowledge Network, Access and scn.

A third of the funding came from licence fees, a third from Telefilm Canada and the ctf, and the balance from private investors and educational sources like the Charles R. Bronfman Foundation and the Canadian Studies Program.

Episodes are individually sold to the countries from which the featured immigrants came.