CBC has cancelled three underperforming series, bringing an end to Da Vinci’s City Hall, Gemini winner This Is Wonderland and hockey mock-doc The Tournament, leaving the pubcaster with no Canadian drama series on its primetime schedule.

‘These are programs that CBC believed in and attached significant resources to,’ says CBC spokesperson Ruth-Ellen Soles. ‘Unfortunately, the audiences for all three have been in steady decline and [the shows] did not resonate with Canadians. These decisions are always difficult, but had to be made.’

City Hall, a coproduction between Haddock Entertainment and Barna-Alper Productions, is a first-year spin-off of Da Vinci’s Inquest – which premiered on the CBC in 1998 – and has averaged just 394,000 viewers since its premiere on Oct. 25, down from Inquest’s final-season average of 561,000. The program debuted two weeks after the CBC lockout ended, and received little in the way of a promotional push.

This Is Wonderland, the Indian Grove Productions and Muse Entertainment copro which picked up three Gemini Awards in performance categories last year, was averaging 376,000 viewers in its third year (the series posted in the mid-400,000 viewer range during season two), while The Tournament, from Adjacent 2 Productions, managed an average audience of 268,000 in its second and final season versus a 547,000 average in its first cycle.

CBC exec VP Richard Stursberg was expected to speak to producers about future programming directions for the CBC at the CFTPA’s Prime Time in Ottawa conference on Feb. 17.