When Susanne Boyce strolls the trade-show floor at MIPCOM, Oct. 4-8 in Cannes, she won’t be worried about les Joneses.

CTV’s president of programming says that if you are going to win the program acquisitions game at the international entertainment content fair, you can’t fret about the competition or latest focus group results. You have to break rules.

‘You have to play to win,’ Boyce explains. ‘It doesn’t always mean you do. You have to stay focused.’

It may sound like Boyce is taking some advice from contestants on CTV’s The Amazing Race, but in this case she is talking about how CTV is going to maintain its audience winning streak against the likes of Global Television and surging specialties such as Showcase.

For instance, CTV acquisitions Nip/Tuck and The Sopranos illustrate the net’s appetite for edgier fare and are not, she insists, a hedge against cable’s incursion on conventional television’s audience base.

‘Canadians are friskier,’ she says, adding that domestic audiences are accepting of naughtier language, nudity and violence on a traditional broadcaster when it’s ‘in context.’ She adds: ‘Risk is critical to success.’

CTV’s programming strategy is about focusing on the creative, she explains, balancing the entertainment on the schedule with news and big events and then aggressively promoting and marketing. Then there is the challenge of blending Canadian with international shows.

Idol breakthrough

‘I’ve always wanted to put a Canadian show on an equal playing field with an American show,’ says Boyce – and CTV is boasting somewhat of a breakthrough on that front.

Canadian Idol – the domestic version of the British format – has been a huge hit with Canadian audiences – even outperforming the U.S. version in Canada.

On Sept. 9, for instance, BBM ratings show CTV’s Canadian Idol earning 2.9 million viewers compared to the series launch of Joey on Global, which earned 2.3 million viewers, and Global’s season debut of The Apprentice, getting 1.9 million viewers.

Canadian comedy Corner Gas ranks among the country’s most-watched shows, with an average viewership around 1.5 million, and will be back for a second season starting in October. Also mixed in with the likes of the highly popular CSI franchise are CTV-commissioned MOWs such as The Life, which aired during the Labor Day weekend to an audience of 775,000.

The two-part miniseries Lives of the Saints – airing in January, starring Sophia Loren and coproduced with Italy’s Canale 5 – shows CTV’s commitment to international programming, Boyce adds, important as Canadian broadcasters become more responsible for doling out Canadian Television Fund money through their performance envelopes.

‘The sooner you get money into the hands of the creators, the sooner you get better programs on the air,’ says Boyce, referring to recent changes in the CTF cash distribution system. ‘You spend time trying to get [a program] right [rather than spending time on the financing]. It gives everyone more control over the creative destiny.’

At Global, programming is undergoing a transition in 2004, with the retirement of some audience favorites.

‘We’ve lost some big shows like Friends,’ says Doug Hoover, senior VP of programming and promotion at Global. ‘We’re in an evolution process. We’ve brought in programming like The Apprentice, which is doing very well.’

Without the benefit of hard audience data, Hoover says he believes it is tracking ahead of last year, especially in the coveted 18-49 demographic.

Global fares less well against CTV and CBC in overall 2+ rankings because the Global group is focused in metro markets. ‘It’s always an issue about how to slice and dice the numbers,’ says Hoover.

Much of Global’s schedule is sourced from NBC in the U.S., which heavily promoted its fall shows like Joey and The Apprentice during the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

MIP, meanwhile, is an opportunity to get together with suppliers, says Hoover, who won’t disclose the acquisition budget set for the October conference. His team, he says, will be looking at mid-season replacement productions and meeting with large suppliers including CBS and Paramount. Global currently buys Survivor, a top-rated show in Canada, from CBS, and Entertainment Tonight, The Insider and JAG from Paramount.

Global Productions, says Hoover, approaches drama in two ways – higher-end, general-audience, coproduction shows that travel internationally – like Zoe Busiek: Wild Card – and cost-sensitive domestic shows that cater to the local market, such as Train 48, an Australian format.

Reality continues to be a major component of the Global schedule through acquisitions and commissioned domestic documentaries and series.

‘It’s difficult to find a reality format that resonates,’ says Hoover, adding that the search is ultimately worth it. ‘The audiences are very attractive and tend to be exactly what our advertisers are looking for.’

Isme Bennie, director of programming and acquisitions for CHUM’s Bravo!, Space and Drive-In Classics, doesn’t take any expectations to MIP. With her limited budget and time slots for non-Canadian programming, she is necessarily selective.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to find,’ she says. ‘You never know out of left field what is going to hit.’

For Bravo!, she’s looking mainly for major performance specials. At earlier MIPs, she bought the Andreas Bocelli at the Pyramids concert, which will air on Bravo! this fall. Bennie is also looking for the next Sex and the City – although she has the rights to air repeats of the HBO-originated series until 2006.

‘We’re looking for a successor with that cachet and quality,’ she explains.

Space, which comprises mainly strip programs such as Star Trek, also has a small budget for acquisitions. Bennie will be looking to the European market for new and unusual drama series and paranormal specials.

Specialty channel programmers, who are enjoying growing audiences often at the expense of conventional networks, are taken very seriously at MIP, says Bennie, who expects to keep to her ‘usual’ prices this year at MIP. With Bravo! being one of the few Canadian broadcast options for opera or ballet productions, for instance, she is in a position to bargain. Movie packages from suppliers like Warner Bros. or Paramount, however, seem to be increasing in price, she says, with increased demand from more movie-oriented channels.

Reality not CHUM’s priority

While drama is key to the schedule at Space, it is less important to Bravo! than performance programming, says Bennie. That said, CHUM’s commissioned series Godiva’s will air on Bravo! after it airs on CHUM’s conventional stations. Space, meanwhile, has commissioned the Canadian series Alienated.

And while reality programming is not a priority for the arts channel, Bravo! is currently in production with Toronto’s Kaleidoscope Productions on the eight-hour Bathroom Divas, a Canadian Idol-like talent contest for opera singers. That will be on the schedule for 2005.

Alliance Atlantis Communications will be sending a team of nine or so to MIPCOM.

‘We have strong brands that require constant care and feeding,’ says Norm Bolen, AAC’s EVP of programming, pointing to specialties including Showcase, History, Life and HGTV.

For Showcase, AAC is looking for movies and series from territories such as the U.K. and Australia and coproduction opportunities.

‘2005 is the tenth anniversary for Showcase,’ says Bolen. ‘We want to make a special effort in terms of programming.’

AAC buyers will be on the lookout for the next Queer as Folk and Six Feet Under, says Bolen, who has high hopes for the Dennis Leary firefighter drama Rescue Me, which debuts this season.

MIP is an opportunity to meet with partners, explore future programs, cultivate output arrangements and strike development deals, says Bolen. And while MIP is primarily an international market, it is also convenient for meetings with Canadian producers, who share $85 million from AAC each year for independent productions including Naked Josh and Trailer Park Boys.

For the lifestyle networks, Bolen says AAC’s strategy is to look for ‘leader programming’ that will continue to enhance the specialties’ audience appeal, such as reality programming.

At French-language Radio-Canada, Mario Clement is rolling out his first season since becoming the pubcaster’s director, general programming 18 months ago. The schedule, which is a bid to woo demographics including teens and young children as well as young men and women, includes programming that is more innovative in style and content, says Clement, through a translator. The half-hour transvestite comedy-drama series Cover Girl is a clear example of the new direction, along with the one-hour prison drama Temps dur.

And perhaps evidence that some programming changes are indeed more relevant to French-Canadian audiences, the new Sunday night talk show Tout le monde en parle – which replaces the previous arts performance stream – generated an audience of 1.7 million in its September debut, compared to the previous schedule’s regular draw of about 300,000.

Arts and cultural programming, says Clement, continues to be an SRC priority. In fact, schedule hours for it are up this year but will be spread out throughout the week, he explains.

At MIP, SRC will be in the buying mood for youth programming to fill its allotted 22 hours per week.

-www.ctv.ca

-www.canada.com/globaltv

-www.chumlimited.com

-www.allianceatlantis.com

-www.src.ca