As I write this, I cast the occasional glance over my shoulder to the TV, tracking game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. The broadcast is as surefire a ratings bonanza as the CBC can expect – with a Canadian team playing, no less. But it makes me wonder how else the Ceeb can attract major eyeballs, on the heels of its long-awaited upfront presentation.

For those who expected the pubcaster’s fall schedule to be a radical overhaul – given its recent influx of new execs, and all their public pronouncements of new directions – well, it’s not. It is, rather, a return of some familiar faces, with some steps in new directions, such as airing reality talent search The One.

This only makes sense. Why get rid of the popular shows that viewers identify with the Ceeb? We’re talking Royal Canadian Air Farce, The Rick Mercer Report, the fifth estate and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. New seasons of these shows will have built-in audiences. And they’re cheaper to produce than dramas.

And it’s with dramas that this sked really starts to look different. Da Vinci’s City Hall and This Is Wonderland, critically acclaimed but attracting nowhere near the one million viewers CBC TV boss Richard Stursberg is demanding, are gone. But considering the big push behind drama series CBC brass keeps conveying, the ’06/07 season is not exactly rife with the format. But this is understandable, as arts and entertainment chief Fred Fuchs and head programmer Kirstine Layfield have only been installed in their posts for a few months. Next year, presumably, is when we will really see what the new CBC thinks a hit series looks like.

For now, we’ve got the new series Intelligence and Jozi-H. Intelligence, the latest offering from Da Vinci’s creator Chris Haddock, is a promising crime drama about the intertwining dealings of gangsters and the law, spawned from a critically hailed – but not largely watched – MOW. But good on the network for giving the series the green light. Haddock has a proven track record, and this show deserves an opportunity to grow.

The question is: will it grow in its timeslot? While it’s never easy to program against CTV and Global and their Hollywood-heavy lineups, CBC is boldly lumping Intelligence against CTV’s Criminal Minds, which surely attracts the same kind of viewer, and Global’s powerhouse medical drama House. CBC’s marketing department will have its work cut out for it.

On the topic of medical dramas, Jozi-H is a series set in a South African hospital that aspires to, as CBC literature puts it, ‘tackle hot issues.’ Is it just me, or does this sound like the commercial kiss of death? While CTV’s med soaper Grey’s Anatomy has come on more like Young Doctors in Heat and become a water-cooler smash, E.R., also on CTV, has become increasingly issue-oriented and its numbers have slipped.

But that’s fine. If CBC wants to back serious drama, more power to them. But just how much faith the network has in the program is unclear, as they have placed it in an unenviable Friday 9 p.m. slot.

Meanwhile, the limited-run drama October, 1970, about the FLQ crisis, is clearly a holdover from the old regime, where politically themed Canadiana was de rigueur. How well this show performs should go far in determining whether the Ceeb continues along this tack. The program comes with excellent credentials, coproduced as it is by Barna-Alper Productions, which made The Shania Twain Story – the last Ceeb drama to actually crack a million viewers – and Big Motion Pictures, which made the fine Trudeau minis.

This is exactly the kind of program our pubcaster should be making – with a storyline that is both dramatically compelling and of social value. Yet, again, its scheduling may seem perplexing, facing off as it does against CTV’s CSI goliath and Global’s hugely popular game show Deal or No Deal. But likely Layfield believes October, 1970 will carry more appeal for an older demographic – or, for that matter, anyone looking for something a little more challenging in their TV viewing.

While the powers that be at CBC have these strong new drama offerings on their hands, their scheduling strategy will make them look either like heroes or chumps. Promotion, an area where the network has fallen short of late, will be half the battle. It is incumbent upon the pubcaster to market these shows for all they’re worth and see what happens.

As I now watch the Carolina Hurricanes hoist the cup, bringing to an end another NHL season, it’s clear that building regular audiences through drama is crucial for the network right now. If, as some predict, CTV comes in and outbids CBC for some or all of its NHL rights when the Ceeb’s contract with the league expires after two more seasons, drama will be a far more integral part of the flagging network’s bread and butter.