As a bittersweet year for scripted TV winds down, the Canadian industry is still struggling to get people to watch its shows.

One distressing trend apparent at the close of 2005 is that even some of the most critically acclaimed efforts of Canadian producers are not connecting with large numbers of viewers.

Nothing epitomized this more than the CTV journo drama The Eleventh Hour, which CTV pulled off life support earlier this year. The drama series, launched by Alliance Atlantis Communications – when it still did that kind of thing – won the recent Gemini Award for best drama series (for the second time in three seasons) but never found a sizable audience. In its lifespan, the program often drew about 400,000 viewers, one-third the number once achieved by the CTV/Alliance Atlantis legal drama The Associates, which it ostensibly replaced. And The Associates ultimately got canceled for low ratings and weak international sales.

So what went wrong?

Producers often blame the so-called drama crisis on mild broadcaster support, but, in this case, the broadcaster was actually getting thanked.

‘To think that CTV actually agonized for three months whether or not to order a fourth season is a great example of their confidence in the show,’ said show producer Peter Simpson, who is known to speak his mind, backstage after the Geminis.

Perhaps the issue-driven series was too earnest for its own good. I recall when Fox premiered Melrose Place in 1992, that show was awfully earnest itself, featuring as it did a social worker as one of its central characters. It was revamped to become a sleazy, over-the-top soaper, and only then did it catch on. The Eleventh Hour tried to sex things up in its final season, but that wasn’t enough.

Meanwhile, two days after The Eleventh Hour gang shed tears on stage for the mere 200,000 who tuned in to the Geminis (and that’s another story), off in New York, CBC’s The Newsroom snagged the International Emmy for best comedy series. Ken Finkleman’s now-defunct satirical take on the egos and inanity that thrive off-camera on a TV news program was drawing even smaller numbers than The Eleventh Hour.

The plight of these shows is not endemic to Canadian television. In the case of The Newsroom, a comparison can be made to Arrested Development, the wacky, hilarious series about a capital-D dysfunctional family in the real estate business. Despite an ardent fan base and a U.S. Emmy Award, Fox – which made its name on out-there comedy – announced it was giving the Bluth clan the axe, as the show was recently recording four million viewers in a market 10 times the size of Canada, putting its numbers on par with The Newsroom.

The bottom line would seem to be that satire doesn’t sell in Peoria, and it doesn’t sell in Brandon, either.

The challenge, then, is to strike the right balance between cleverness and popular appeal – and, if you’ve gotten that far, pray your broadcaster will promote your show properly.

Tepid ratings might be fine for the CBC, which has a mandate more about quality than eyeballs, but for a private broadcaster, backing a losing horse just doesn’t make sense. Of course, one can’t help but feel that the post-lockout CBC has dropped the ball on shows that should have been more widely seen. Take the MOW Intelligence from Chris Haddock. The thriller certainly had the intrigue and the behind-the-scenes pedigree that should have translated into strong numbers, but it ended up drawing less than 500,000.

Among the national networks, CTV is 2005’s clear winner in terms of domestic hits. We could look at the ongoing success of Corner Gas, which got funnier and nearly drew two million viewers on occasion. And then there is the venerable Degrassi: The Next Generation, which generated excitement out of sensationalistic storylines, the lucky fact that Kevin Smith is such a mega-fan, and an upcoming feature film. It cracked one million viewers for the first time.

Most telling, perhaps, is the fact that CTV made former CFL player Terry Evanshen a bigger star than Shania Twain, one of the best-selling female singers of all time.

Compare the 1.5 million viewers CTV got for The Man Who Lost Himself, an MOW about Evanshen, who lost his memory in a car accident, with CBC’s biopic Shania: A Life in Eight Albums, which garnered nearly 1.2 million.

CTV has to be credited with its promotional push on this one. Not only do its hit U.S. and Canadian shows provide excellent ad opportunities, but the net pumped up the show on its Canada AM and eTalk Daily programs and smartly aired it on sister sports specialty TSN as well, opening up another promotional avenue.

Global Television has the capacity to act likewise on behalf of Canadian production, but has chosen not to, riding almost exclusively on its U.S. imports. But the caster finally has a new Canadian production on the way, with the launch of its Winnipeg-set teen drama series Falcon Beach next month. With its attractive stars and glossy veneer, it bears the earmarks of a potential hit.

This is a promising start for Global, but is Falcon Beach part of a wave of new domestic dramas from the broadcaster? Stay tuned in the new year.

Playback does not publish again until Jan. 9. We wish you all a happy and safe holiday, and may your 2006 be filled with eyeballs.