This Hour Has 22 Minutes producer Geoff D’Eon says the long-running, satirical Salter Street Films program is beginning to become one with the Internet. With a pair of successful initiatives under its belt already – one involving an online petition calling for Alliance leader Stockwell Day to change his name to Doris – the Web has been able to generate some excitement for the cbc show’s eighth season.

‘We are always looking for ways to generate a buzz about the show,’ says D’Eon. ‘Part of the answer this season has turned out to be the Internet.’

The ‘Doris Day’ stunt was the idea of 22 Minutes star Rick Mercer, who set out to get 350,000 online participants to add their names to a petition to get the Alliance leader to change his name. The number 350,000 was chosen in accordance with Day’s talked-about changes to social policy if elected. D’Eon says the stunt resulted in more than a million hits at the new 22 Minutes site, which could have had Day changing his name two or even three times over.

‘The beauty of putting it on the Internet is that all of a sudden, our audience, instead of just being passive, gets to participate in something,’ says D’Eon. ‘That is the key difference of the Internet. With over a million hits, it was just a smashing success.’

D’Eon and Mercer were eager to use the website for further audience participation, and they found a way shortly after the election was over. D’Eon agreed to go with Mercer to Bosnia to visit Canadian peacekeepers stationed there. A segment was shot and aired on 22 Minutes’ Dec. 4 episode, which encouraged fans to go to the website to send a message to peacekeepers and other Canadian military personnel who would not be home for the holidays.

‘The theme of the piece is ‘Send us a message,’ and boy have they ever done it,’ says D’Eon. ‘There are almost 5,000 messages posted right now from Canadians, all over the country. It’s an outpouring of national pride and gratitude directed toward these peacekeepers, whose mission in Bosnia has become invisible because it has fallen off the news agenda.’

Although the Web initiatives have been successful at first glance, D’Eon says it is difficult to concretely say whether or not the crossover of mediums has been responsible for the very healthy ratings 22 Minutes has garnered this season.

‘It’s hard to draw a straight line between any of the initiatives the show takes and ratings,’ says D’Eon. ‘The hour-long special that had the Bosnia piece in it had 1.3 million viewers on the Monday night, which is a huge number. That is way above average for us. If we hit a million a week, we are really happy.’

He expects 22 Minutes’ involvement with the Web to continue.

‘I don’t know when convergence will happen, but it is going to,’ says D’Eon. ‘The tv will one day be inextricably bound up with computers. I don’t think anyone at 22 Minutes even pretends to know how it all works, how the wires connect or the social impact of it, but the way people consume entertainment programming is clearly changing.’ *

-www.22minutes.com

-www.salter.com