This month, three new comedy pilots featuring some of the top names in Canadian comedy, including Colin Mochrie, Mary Walsh and Peter Keleghan, will premier on CBC. And rather than relying solely on ratings and sample audiences to evaluate the pilots’ potential, the pubcaster is going straight to the source – the viewers.

‘It’s a way for our audiences to give us some sense of what they think of the programs, and we take that feedback into account when we inevitably assess the pilots and make the decision as to which of these shows are going to get picked up full-time,’ says Slawko Klymkiw, CBC’s executive director of network programming.

For a full week after each pilot airs, audiences can provide feedback via an online form, which asks for opinions on the characters, storylines and what viewers would like to see more or less of in the show. The strategy not only helps the Ceeb make tough programming decisions, but also increases its connection with audiences, says Klymkiw.

‘At some point television has to learn to be a little less passive and a little more dynamic in terms of its relationships with audiences, and allow them to participate in some way,’ explains Klymkiw. ‘As a public broadcaster it’s remarkably important for us to have connectivity with our audiences.’

The first of the three new pilots, Walter Ego, starring Keleghan as a newspaper cartoonist, aired on Jan. 3 at 8 p.m. Next up was Getting Along Famously on Jan. 10 at 9 p.m. The comedy, set in 1963, stars Mochrie as Kip Delaney who, along with his wife, played by Mochrie’s real-life partner Debra McGrath, hosts a once-popular variety show that’s beginning to take a ratings slide.

Walsh’s Hatching, Matching & Dispatching, a Newfoundland-based comedy about a family business that offers wedding, funeral and ambulance services all under one roof, airs Jan. 17 at 9 p.m.

At press time, CBC had just begun digesting viewer feedback, but Klymkiw says it is very unlikely that all three shows will emerge into full-blown series, and that decisions regarding the fate of the pilots have to be made in time for CTF deadlines in March.

Using viewer feedback as a tool to help make programming decisions is a strategy the Ceeb has used before. In 2002, it went to the audience when it aired pilots for Howard Busgang’s An American in Canada and Bette MacDonald’s Rideau Hall.

Klymkiw says using pilots to test shows is a better strategy for CBC than commissioning an entire series based on the script.

‘We’ve been piloting for a long time,’ he says. ‘We don’t have a ton of cash, so we really want to make sure that we give ourselves every opportunity to pick something that’s going to succeed.’

Other Canadian broadcasters are doing the same. Global went with a pilot to test its new Canadian comedy The Jane Show on Dec. 15, and is premiering another new domestic production this month. Falcon Beach, which airs Jan. 29, was originally intended to be a pilot, but may air as a stand-alone MOW. Shot in Manitoba’s Lake Winnipeg cottage country, Falcon Beach follows a group of young people through their summer holidays at a lake resort. It is coproduced by Winnipeg’s Original Pictures and Toronto’s Insight Productions.

While it has not decided to go the pilot route, CTV, for its part, is introducing its new dramatic series Instant Star, about how a young girl’s life unfolds after she wins a talent search show à la Canadian Idol. The series starts airing Jan. 23, but CTV did air a sneak preview of the first two episodes in September, directly after the 2004 season finale of Canadian Idol.

-www.cbc.ca

-www.ctv.ca

-www.canada.com/globaltv