Under the new ownership of Corus Entertainment and with the goal of becoming the number-one-rated specialty channel in Canada, WTN is set to relaunch on April 15 with a new name and look, a Western feed and a commitment to license five new, original dramatic programs.

As a new Toronto service, soon to be known simply as W, the focus is on ratings, audiences and entertainment, says VP and general manager Wendy Herman.

Instead of a checkerboard of lifestyle programming that would traditionally run in the 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. time slot, the service will strip such dramatic fare as Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, Our Hero, Riverdale and These Arms of Mine.

It is also in development on three new Canadian MOWs and two new series, which are currently before the CTF. They include a six-part series coproduction on Margaret Atwood’s short stories, from Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films and Winnipeg’s Original Pictures; the dramatic comedy series A Guy and a Girl (an English adaptation of Un gars, une fille), from Halifax’s Big Motion Pictures; an MOW based on the life of Canadian jockey Joan Phipps (untitled), from Winnipeg-based Buffalo Gal Productions; Heart Strings, an MOW about a rising country western star, from Regina’s Minds Eye Pictures; and an MOW based on the true story of a Vancouver woman who goes undercover in the Mafia, from Vancouver’s Brightlight Pictures.

The new licences are made possible, at least in part, by the Corus Women’s Programming Fund, set up to provide $15 million over five years to independent producers developing programming of relevance to women.

‘We wanted to jumpstart the process at the beginning, so there’s a skew to doing more in the early years of the plan,’ says Herman.

And while the CRTC had encouraged Corus ‘to maintain and build on WTN’s orientation as a Western-based service,’ Herman says the channel’s development deals with Western independent producers is a natural extension of ‘our heritage in the West with Movie Central.’

The decision to introduce a new Western feed, which mirrors the YTV model, was also an autonomous decision, says Herman. ‘It leverages the fact that audiences are underserved in the West,’ as indicated through focus groups.

Other big changes include a new documentary block, which replaces three previous blocks. ‘We’re increasing the quality of the docs. They’re fewer and better – we’re acquiring what we call new blockbuster docs, Canadian and foreign,’ says Herman.

New Canadian docs premiering on the network within the next couple months include: Cherry Kingsley: Recognizing the Person, about a street kid turned advocate for abused kids, produced by Penny Joy of Gumboot Productions; Mama June: A Different Perspective on AIDS, about an elderly woman with AIDS who returns to Tanzania to speak out against the misconceptions of the disease, produced by Hilary Jones-Farrow of The May Street Group; and Secret Secretaries, about a group of young women during WWII who were recruited to work illegally in New York on a secret mission for Canada’s most famous spy, produced by Hoda Elatawi for GAPC Broadcast Entertainment.

Canceled shows include My Messy Bedroom, Anything I Can Do, Head Over Wheels and Modern Manners.

While Corus has not injected any new money into the service, aside from the Women’s Programming Fund, Herman says there has been significant cost-saving from cost-sharing opportunities made possible under the Corus umbrella.

‘We’ve also been able to leverage internal expertise to go in this new direction.’

And while Corus president and CEO John Cassidy told Playback last year that he envisions the newly acquired service to look more like Lifetime in then future, Herman assures that the goal is to mirror the American service’s number-one position in the market, ‘not its lifestyle.’

WTN, which Corus bought for $205 million in March 2001, ranks number three among specialty channels. TSN ranks number one, followed by Discovery.

-www.corusent.com

-www.wtn.ca