CBC has unveiled a fall schedule heavy with reality and other factual entertainment borrowed from the U.S. and Britain, laying a trail of breadcrumbs across its expanded primetime schedule that, it is hoped, will lure young viewers back to the third-placed network.

The net will turn out Canadian versions of ABC’s singing contest The One – itself a redo of the Quebec-made Star Académie – and of Dragon’s Den from the U.K., about entrepreneurs pitching venture capitalists for money. It has also promoted George Stroumboulopoulos to the main network, which will rerun The Hour weeknights at 11 p.m., two hours after its slot on Newsworld.

The 2006/07 schedule is filled out by a smaller number of new dramas and older, standby comedies, revealed on June 15 at the net’s Toronto headquarters by programming boss Kirstine Layfield, who talked up the need to revitalize the national public broadcaster.

‘The stakes are high, the need is urgent, but the rewards will be great,’ she told the crowd.

It’s a transitional schedule, she added in a later interview with Playback; falling somewhere between the now-abandoned theory of ‘big event’ drama put forth by her predecessor Slawko Klymkiw, and the network’s current push for big ratings.

‘Part of growing a bigger audience is you don’t throw away the good stuff,’ she says, citing Rick Mercer’s show and the fifth estate as examples. ‘They do well. They hit their audience targets. So to surround them with other kinds of programming – that’s what this schedule is really about.’

Mondays at 8 p.m. will see the return of the BBC’s Doctor Who, with David Tennant taking over for Christopher Eccleston, leading into the new sitcom Rumours at 9 p.m., an English version of the Radio-Canada sitcom, produced by Moses Znaimer.

Znaimer hopes that the sitcom, set at a girly gossip magazine, will play as well for the rest of Canada as it has for Quebecers. ‘Rumours is set in Toronto, vigorously. Rumeurs is set in Montreal. The rest of the story is universal,’ he says. The French version is produced by Sphère Média Plus.

But an office comedy? Set at a magazine, no less? Not exactly a fresh take on the sitcom formula.

‘This is really not that much about the office, and maybe we need to make that clearer,’ says Znaimer. ‘It’s about those people’s lives, so where they work is not essential.’

On CBC’s Tuesdays, The Rick Mercer Report stays put at 8 p.m., leading into This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the Chris Haddock crime drama Intelligence at 9 p.m., putting it up against Global TV darling House and Criminal Minds on CTV.

Dragon’s Den shares its Wednesday 8 p.m. slot with Underdogs, another business-y bit of factual entertainment led by Wendy Mesley, about consumers fighting back against mega-corporations, which leads into news warhorse the fifth estate at 9 p.m.

Thursdays at 9 p.m. will see October, 1970, the mini about the FLQ crisis by Big Motion Pictures and Barna-Alper Productions, in for a fight against CTV’s CSI and the Global hit Deal or No Deal. The slot will switch over to the performing arts showcase Opening Night later in the year, after October’s 8 x 60 run.

Royal Canadian Air Farce still has Fridays at 8 p.m., of course, leading into an 8:30 slot shared by Mercer reruns and Just For Laughs Gags, and to the new medical trauma drama Jozi-H at 9 p.m.

Not a great spot for one of the season’s most ambitious dramas (see story, below) and an odd segue – going from the antics of Farce and Gags to the blood-soaked emergency room of a South African hospital – but Layfield again notes that the comedies are reliable ratings winners, going on to add that the slightly older target audience of Jozi-H aren’t the sort who always go out on weekends. It’s a more ‘settled-down’ and ‘thoughtful’ timeslot.

Venerable U.K. soap Coronation Street is also back, weeknights at 7 p.m., along with Old Faithfuls including Canadian Antiques Roadshow, Venture and Marketplace. CBC is also making ample use of Just For Laughs, the various airings of which take up a full eight hours on its grid, putting the screen time of the Montreal comedy festival on par with that of The National.

‘It’s kind of like a syndication model where you’re trying to find things that are strippable, long running,’ says Layfield. ‘The nice thing about the Just For Laughs brand is there’s a variance of what they do. Some stuff is more appropriate for late night, some is more family oriented.’

Layfield is especially upbeat about the main network debut of Stroumboulopoulos. The Hour will run Sunday through Thursday at 11 p.m., following the more straight-faced news of Peter Mansbridge and weekenders Carole MacNeil and Evan Solomon.

‘Bringing it to the network just makes it bigger in scope – topics he can cover, guests he can have on,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be a bigger pop-culture political type of show. It’s going to be bigger and broader.’

Saturdays are taken up almost entirely by hockey, Sundays by news and the 10-hour docu-series Hockey: A People’s History.

Kim Dougherty, media manager at OMD, is upbeat about Layfield’s handiwork, the reality shows in particular.

‘These days reality does well no matter what, so that’s a positive for them,’ she says, adding that she’s ‘pleased’ with the potential of Dragon’s Den and The One, among others.

And Stroumboulopoulos? Ready for the main network?

‘He doesn’t have huge numbers, but what he has are increasing,’ says Dougherty. ‘It’s been growing since he came on the air.’

www.cbc.ca

Meanwhile, subsequent to CBC’s fall launch, the network confirmed that it will simulcast ABC’s American version of The One this summer, pushing newscast The National with Peter Mansbridge from its usual 10 p.m. slot to 11 p.m. The move, which takes effect on Tuesday nights starting July 18, has drummed up a storm of controversy for the pubcaster.

‘To spend money simulcasting a U.S talent show in search of ratings and revenue is a sell-out of [CBC’s] mandate as Canada’s national public broadcaster,’ said ACTRA national executive director Stephen Waddell in a statement.