With the Canadian fall spend at hand, broadcasters are lighting candles and praying that they’ll see just some of the manna that fell from heaven during the U.S. upfront.

While last year’s U.S. spend showed a healthy jump to US$8.2 billion, early numbers peg the 2003 market at between US$9.2 and US$9.5 billion – and that 12% increase made for a very hot U.S. market. More notable for the broadcasters perhaps, it has been reported that some top-rated shows netted cost-per-thousand-viewers [CPM] increases as high as 25%.

And what does this mean to Canada? Well… perhaps not much.

Although broadcasters here are hoping fall fever will sweep north with West Nile, buyers, in particular, just don’t see it happening.

‘Canadian broadcasters absolutely love to piggyback on the U.S. frenzy,’ observes Theresa Treutler, Toronto-based SVP broadcast investment director at Toronto’s Starcom Worldwide. ‘But whether it pans out or not is not so certain, and I think there’s an element of fabricated demand here. Unlike the States, where vast pots of money show up somehow, I just don’t see that happening in Canada.’

Less ravaged by the dot.com bust and recent world events, Canada has enjoyed a more stable if not healthy economy in the last 18 months – which means no double-digit recovery, as the U.S. is experiencing. Most buyers peg the overall market as flat, with growth potential in the low single digits, while broadcasters assert it will at least be in the mid to high single digits (with total ad spend still in the $2.5-billion range).

When it comes to CPM hike predictions, both buyers and sellers forecast increases running between 3% and 8% on the conventionals.

With fall being the most important buy of the year, it’s likely things will start with a bang as buyers try to get prime inventory before it disappears and CPMs inflate.

‘There would appear to be lots of people lined up and ready to go at the gate,’ notes Doug Checkeris, managing partner at The Media Company. ‘We think this fall is going to be robust because there’s been a decent third quarter. But it’s the same issue – those programs that might have done 14s now do 12s. You need more of them to get the same number of ratings each week.’

Checkeris adds that the irony is, with ratings dropping every year, buyers spend more to get the same audience, creating an inflation that sees advertisers rewarding poorer ratings performances with higher CPMs.

CTV wins the year that was

Looking back, CTV is the clear winner when it came to ratings gains, a victory that Global has tacitly acknowledged by going on a mad shopping spree for new shows.

In the 18 to 34 demo, CTV has followed one good year with another, with average primetime ratings up 16% (from 2.5 to 2.9, according to Nielsen Media Research, see charts opposite). Much of that movement has come at the expense of demo leader Global (which dropped 18% from 3.8 to 3.1), as well as the CBC (down from 2.2 to 1.4, or 36%).

CTV was also gangbusters in the 18 to 49 demo. Although it tied Global in 2002 with a 3.5 average primetime audience, CTV has since stormed ahead to 3.9 on the strength of top-20 performers American Idol 2 (which made it to the podium twice with average ratings of 11.5 and 9.8), Amazing Race (9.4), newcomer CSI Miami (8.5), Third Watch (6.9) and The Osbournes (6.8). Hardly missed was the late Ally McBeal, which broke into the top-20 list last year with a 6.6 rating.

Global slipped only slightly in the 18 to 49 bracket this year (to a primetime average of 3.3), but several of its top performers dropped out of the top 20: X-Files (a defunct 7.1 ratings performer last year), Frasier (7.0) and Everybody Loves Raymond (6.6).

Global held onto the top two rankings in the demo thanks to two Survivor incarnations, although each lost a single ratings point. Beyond the CBC, which pined for a lost top-20 hockey performer and 31% of its primetime share (from 2.9 to 2.0), the other stations mostly maintained their positions, with CH improving ratings slightly.

In the stodgy yet important adults 25 to 54 demo, CTV continued to outpace Global, moving from a 4.0 primetime average to 4.6 and doubling the number of top-20 shows in its inventory. Replace The Osbournes in the list above with Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and you get the idea. While Global’s primetime average stayed constant at 3.5, last year’s top-20 performers Malcolm in the Middle (8.8 average audience), Raymond and X-Files slipped off the chart this year. Global managed to maintain its place because its strongest performers (Survivor, Friends) found even bigger audiences. For its part, the CBC dropped a full point in primetime (from a 3.3 to a 2.3) for 25 to 54s.

A ‘lackluster’ new show crop

With a schedule in need of shoring up, CanWest headed to the L.A. Screenings to spend a wad of increasingly valuable Canadian bucks, announcing a few weeks ago that it’s picking up over a dozen new shows for the main net and CH.

But given that only about three shows out of 20 ever make it, it isn’t surprising buyers aren’t usually enthused by the fare they’re served, and this year was no exception. ‘I have to say that this is one of the more lackluster upfronts,’ observes Toronto-based OMD managing director Sherry O’Neil. ‘Nothing really knocked our socks off, like when we saw 24.’

Comedies and cop shows characterize the season’s offerings, with the occasional nostalgic supernatural/superhero romp thrown in for good measure. (‘I guess everyone is looking for the next Angel,’ notes The Media Company’s Checkeris on the slew of quirky fantasy shows. ‘We’ve got all these crazy teenagers and everybody talking to God.’)

On the reality front, network programmers are starting to be more selective about what they slot in, at least for now. But at US$1.6 million an episode, there is something about Raymond – he ain’t cheap. So reality will still play an important but restrained role in schedules.

Notes Checkeris: ‘All the networks are saying: ‘No. No. No. We’re going with scripted programming.’ I think part of the problem is that they got so obtuse with their concepts that they ultimately had some advertiser backlash in terms of them saying, ‘We don’t want to be associated with that program.” (Monica Lewinsky, we’re looking at you.) Unanimously, buyers believe reality will appear en masse later in the season to replace programs that don’t find their legs.