For 10 years, British rocker Elvis Costello turned down repeated requests to host a TV chat show with fellow musicians, before he finally accepted the anchor chair on Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…, which bowed April 3 on CTV and Bravo.

Turns out it was a call from fellow musician Elton John, whose production shingle Rocket Pictures had teamed with Toronto producer Tri-Fi Productions to develop a music master-class series as a Canada/U.K. coproduction that snagged Costello.

And the chance to work on a series conceived, developed and produced by Canadians.

‘You [Canadians] have a great tradition of great interviewers. People are used to speaking with complete thoughts here,’ says Costello of Canadian TV. Costello maintains a part-time home in Vancouver with wife and jazz songstress Diana Krall.

He lists local interviewers like Vicky Gabereau, George Stroumboulopoulos and Peter Mansbridge as rising above their U.S. counterparts in skill and intelligence.

‘Larry King isn’t the same as Peter Mansbridge. It’s possible to make television that’s interesting and entertaining and respects people’s intelligence. You don’t have to pitch it to the person with the least attention in the room,’ he adds.

Costello also underlines a truth about Canadian TV overlooked by attention recently paid to a slew of homegrown dramas currently on U.S. network schedules: local producers of reality TV and lifestyle series have long departed from the nasty and superficial that fills American TV to give worldwide audiences a positive reason to tune in.

Take Haim Goldenberg, an Israeli-born mind reader and magician who stars in WestWind Pictures’ Goldmind for TVtropolis. Goldenberg draws audience gasps when he uses the power of suggestion to render a bodybuilder unable to lift weights and a radio announcer speechless, and still more wonder when he shows a middle-aged woman she can influence how people on the other side of a shop window think of her by simply believing in herself.

The Canadian TV series’ illusion, like all successful deceptions, requires steering the TV audience at home to look beyond the real money-making business of entertainment to the virtue of Goldenberg’s positive message.

‘It’s about an openness, a dilated heart, and optimism,’ series co-creator and host Goldenberg says of his appeal to TV audiences.

Mary Darling, executive producer and CEO of WestWind, says the series uses no smoke or mirrors or camera trickery, nor is Goldenberg like more flamboyant TV magicians Criss Angel and David Copperfield. ‘It is a genuine, intimate and heartfelt show about a man who has the gift to open people’s eyes, hearts and minds in the hope of inspiring others,’ she explains.

Creating reality TV with a purpose isn’t new to Canadian producers. Successful series like HGTV’s Colin and Justin’s Home Heist and Holmes on Homes, and CBC’s Code Green Canada and Triple Sensation chose to make a similar public display of virtue and achievement, rather than pit neurotics and ne’re-do-wells against each other for money and power. Even popular reality TV series like Canadian Idol and Project Runway Canada tend to prize nice over nasty as a nod to their local audience.

And this after U.S. network TV has come close to exhausting the reality TV genre to retain eyeballs of viewers long tired of bland sitcoms and dramas.

Survivor host Jeff Probst recently unveiled a deal with CBS to create a reality TV series entitled Live Like You’re Dying, which will weekly feature a terminally ill person on their last life adventure. The series, from reality TV majordomo Mark Burnett, provides an apt metaphor for U.S. network TV as it struggles for relevance against growing competition from niche TV channels and the Internet.

For his part, Costello bristles at any suggestion that he’s fronting a chat show, especially your garden-variety type that fawns over blatantly hyped music artists with misguided praise for their latest album or concert tour. Instead, Costello ignores what life is like aboard the rock ‘n’ roll gravy train to divine the creative building blocks of music inspiration.

‘Our conversations are full-length, not these short bantery conversations that one sees on chat shows,’ he explains. Spectacle, which also airs on the Sundance Channel and Channel Four, includes music performances by guest artists of songs that may well be decades out of the charts.

‘We just care if we want to play the song, or if the artist wants to play it,’ Costello says.

Tony Bennett, during his upcoming star turn on Spectacle, sings three songs, none of which is I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Instead, Bennett and fellow Spectacle guests like James Taylor, Smokey Robinson and Kris Kristofferson get a rare chance to eulogize musicians and artists who helped launch and propel their careers, whether with musical inspiration or collaboration.

So add Spectacle and Goldmind to Flashpoint and The Listener as TV’s pied piper. For Canada leads as U.S. and other international broadcasters follow.