The news out of both the CBC and the U.S. network fall launches is bad news for some Canadian prodcos – or, at least, it’s going to force them to rethink their business plans.

It’s all about movies of the week and miniseries, those staples of Canadian dramatic production for both the domestic and service sectors. It seems that neither the Ceeb nor the major American nets want to make them anymore.

This is what CBC execs Kirstine Layfield and Fred Fuchs, newly charged with reinventing the pubcaster’s drama lineup, recently told a gathering of producers in Vancouver, as the dynamic duo toured the country discussing the Ceeb’s needs with content providers. They are looking for two or three new drama series to fill the void left by the cancellations of This Is Wonderland, Da Vinci’s City Hall and hock-moc-doc The Tournament. Those shows got the axe because they failed to attract the one million viewers CBC TV head Richard Stursberg expects all Ceeb dramas to reel in. In their place, so far we know that the crime series Intelligence, from Da Vinci’s creator Chris Haddock, and the South African copro medical drama series Jozi H are on the way.

It remains to be seen whether the series that get the CBC green light will indeed bring seven-digit audiences ­- CTV comedy phenom Corner Gas is currently the only scripted Canuck series to do so – but it is easy to understand why the pubcaster’s push is now behind series.

In case you haven’t heard, drama series are hot again. Well, at least U.S. drama series are hot. In the crazy, cyclical world of tee vee, it was but a couple of years ago when pundits were ready to administer last rites on the form, and then along came ABC with Desperate Housewives and Lost, which turned out to be juggernauts. The net has since brought us another water-cooler fave in Grey’s Anatomy, while Fox has plenty of heat behind its med drama House and Prison Break. And the CSI and Law & Order franchises, from CBS and NBC, respectively, keep marching merrily along.

A hot drama series is pure gold to a network. Get audiences hooked and they will come back to you every week, bringing strong ratings and the opportunity to hawk all your other shows to them. If you’re anything like me, you look forward to each successive episode of Lost in the hopes that maybe it will explain what the hell the episode you just saw was all about.

So why shouldn’t CBC try to get a piece of that sweet action?

MOWs and minis have been big with the Ceeb in the past, but what hasn’t been big are the recent numbers for these programs, especially in the post-lockout landscape. So-called event shows such as the minis Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story and Canada Russia ’72 and MOWs including Gordon Pinsent’s Heyday all fell short – some way short – of Stursberg’s Magic Million, despite mostly positive reviews. TV movies are expensive as one-off programs, and when the subject matter is intrinsically Canadian, foreign sales are often limited. Drama series are also expensive, but at least they allow for the amortization of costs in terms of sets, props and costumes.

So you can understand where CBC would rather expend its energies.

Meanwhile, in New York, the U.S. nets recently unveiled their fall lineups. Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly about drama series, with a return of all the aforementioned hits along with a new crop of hopefuls that bear suspicious resemblances to Law & Order, Prison Break and Lost. There are even a few that sound original.

What is missing on all the major nets’ schedules for next season is a regular movie night. Up until now, CBS, for example, offered a Sunday night movie. Word that the U.S. nets are largely abandoning this kind of show is bad news on the service front. U.S. TV movie producers, always looking to save a buck, have often shot in Canada. Just recently, NBC aired the disaster mini 10.5: Apocalypse, which shot in Montreal last summer. Of course, there remain American cable nets such as Showtime, but the cable net no longer produces movies like it did in its peak, when it brought 23 MOWs to Toronto service shop Dufferin Gate Productions in 1999.

So what if MOWs and minis fade in favor of drama series, as long as drama is still being produced in this country? Well, a series provides a project for one prodco, maybe two if it’s a copro, whereas backing a bunch of movies better spreads the wealth.

Of course, the death of the MOW has been declared before, and the form seemed to bounce back somewhat. And lest we forget, drama series were seemingly on life support as well. And even if CBC is getting out of the original movie business, CTV has been fairly prolific in commissioning its own, and has enjoyed strong ratings for them because the net is so skilled at promotion.

Nonetheless, this new direction from CBC and the U.S. nets should have some drama producers making darn sure they have a can’t-lose series pitch on the go, or perhaps have them start thinking a little bit more beyond drama altogether.