The numbers are in on CBC’s new fall shows, and, despite some typically high-quality programs, the ratings are disastrous.

In all fairness, despite low viewerships overall, some of these series are showing growth, which speaks more for word of mouth than any marketing efforts on the part of the pubcaster.

Dragon’s Den, an odd foray into reality TV with shades of The Apprentice, although slammed in the mainstream press, is watchable enough for those who like this kind of thing. It debuted to a paltry 219,000 viewers on Oct. 4. Two weeks later, however, it pulled in 383,000.

Meanwhile, Rumours, a peppy half-hour comedy about the staff at a Toronto tabloid, likewise stumbled out of the gate with 168,000 viewers on Oct. 9, but that grew to 225,000 the following week.

So, overall, not good, but there’s potential.

It’s when we look at the Ceeb’s dramas that the picture really gets scary. And that’s a shame, because that’s where the network’s best new shows lie.

Intelligence, Chris Haddock’s crime drama about the point where cops and criminals intersect, opened to a tepid 443,000 viewers on Oct. 10, declining the following week to 341,000. It’s hard to explain the drop-off, although it is quite possible that the show, a typically stylish, sophisticated and complicated Haddock concoction, is too smart for some TV watchers.

Whatever the case, these early returns are disappointing. Recall if you will that Haddock’s last series, Da Vinci’s City Hall, was cancelled due to low numbers, averaging 394,000. Recall also that CBC TV executive VP Richard Stursberg earlier this year declared that scripted CBC programs should be drawing one million viewers.

The copro Jozi-H, best described as ER in South Africa, had an audience of merely 195,000 on Oct. 13, increasing to 233,000 the following week.

Finally, and most shockingly, is the performance of the 8 x 60 mini October 1970, which only 110,000 watched on Oct. 12, and 105,000 on the 19th. The mini, about the FLQ crisis, is in fact excellent, but perhaps viewers are sated with CBC dramatizations of pivotal people and events in Canadian history.

Only one year ago, the 500,000 viewer average for the mini Trudeau 2: Maverick in the Making – produced by Big Motion Pictures, which also coproduced October 1970 – seemed like a new low, and now not one of the caster’s new shows can achieve even that.

It’s never easy to pinpoint the reasons for a show’s commercial failure, and the private networks also introduce a new batch of fall shows – all made in the U.S. – most of which are quickly transferred to the trash heap. But still, it is stunning that not one of these new CBC shows has caught on in a big way.

A definite problem is the admittedly cash-strapped network’s inability to effectively market its fall crop. Speaking to regular TV viewers tells me that the Canadian public is largely unaware of these shows’ existence, let alone when they’re on.

Trouble is, the Ceeb is promoting its new shows primarily through its own network, which is bereft of hit shows outside of Hockey Night in Canada. It’s a vicious circle. If nobody is watching the old stuff, how does one get the word out about the new stuff? Prognosticators who warned that last year’s CBC staff lockout would cost the net viewers it would have a hard time getting back seem to have been right.

The net is, however, putting a disproportionate amount of promotional muscle behind its four-times-a-week news talk fest The Hour, recently migrated over from Newsworld. (The show would do better to rebrand as The Half Hour – George S. is a fine interviewer, but the show drags long before the end.) It’s good to see the Ceeb getting aggressive with billboards for the show, but how much is invested in the production of The Hour compared to the net’s expensive dramas, and what are the returns? The show averaged 119,000 the week of Oct. 23.

And when the network does have a perfect opportunity to finally score with a new show, it misses the net entirely.

The recently wrapped Hockey: A People’s History, which dug up fascinating stories from our national game and evocatively brought them to life, should have been a smash, but averaged just 400,000. (Stursberg says primetime CBC docs should be getting twice that much.) But the Ceeb made a fatal mistake in airing most of the series before the NHL season began. So not only did it come before viewers were transformed into full-on puckheads, but it didn’t take advantage of CBC’s biggest audience of hockey fans – during HNIC – to promote the program.

This lost opportunity cost the Ceeb in more ways than one. At least one major sponsor that had signed on early to Hockey: A People’s History requested a discount from the network when it learned of its programming strategy.

Last year Stursberg declared that the CBC should get a 50% cut of the Canadian Television Fund (the 10th anniversary of which we celebrate in this issue). He didn’t get his wish, nor should he – not until he can prove that the pubcaster’s shows are truly relevant to Canadian viewers.