Canuck broadcasters are all a-tingle about their entertainment news shows. Timed to launch around the celebrity-laden Toronto International Film Festival, Global, CHUM and Toronto’s SunTV have all jumped in the pool to see if they can grab viewers away from CTV’s eTalk Daily.

Global made the biggest splash with Entertainment Tonight Canada, closely modeled on the U.S. juggernaut that it precedes every weeknight. When Global announced ET Canada a few weeks back, I was skeptical. First of all, ET, in its present incarnation, hardly offers a lofty standard to aspire to.

Debuting 25 years ago, ET initially offered some substance. Once upon a time, it actually reported on the entertainment industry. Film buff extraordinaire Leonard Maltin was a regular correspondent, imparting his knowledge on the film biz and reviewing new releases – sometimes negatively! But apparently that didn’t sell in Peoria, because out went film reviews and in came incessant celebrity pandering, coverage of every major swimsuit calendar shoot on the planet, and – the show’s current favorite topic – women’s weight issues. Sorry, but updates on the overweight actress from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and stories about how Carnie Wilson is helping a friend shed some pounds ain’t my idea of entertainment. Or news. (My wife makes me watch – honest.)

To be fair to ET Canada, eTalk, CHUM’s Star! Daily, and SunTV’s Inside Jam!, I watched an episode of each during TIFF to see what they had to offer.

ET Canada opened with some ubiquitous American celeb piece – whether it was Renée’s failed marriage or Britney’s baby, I can’t recall. But about six minutes in, the show got to the kind of Cancon Global had been crowing about – a piece on Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies and its current U.S. ratings controversy. It was downright surreal to see the cerebral Mr. Egoyan being given the full-on ET treatment. But the segment was no puff piece, offering insightful interviews with the director and cast members Colin Firth, Kevin Bacon and Canuck Rachel Blanchard.

The kind of Canadian celebrities ET Canada seems to favor are those who work in Hollywood (William Shatner, Rachel McAdams and Neve Campbell), but, thankfully, there was not a supermodel or a liposuction story in sight.

While watching Cheryl Hickey mimic Mary Hart certainly is weird, Star! Daily goes the Canadian multicultural route with host Husein Madhavji. An amiable enough chap, he is just too front-and-center over the course of half an hour. In the ep I saw, sidekick Danielle McGimsie awkwardly materialized 16 minutes in. But CHUM has announced that cohost Dina Pugliese is coming in December.

It was quite amusing to hear Madhavji report on a survey indicating that eight out of 10 people (who are these people – Star! Daily staff?) are ‘sick of reality TV,’ allowing the show to bash, in accompanying clips, CTV’s Idol series, along with Global’s Survivor and The Apprentice.

But give Star! Daily credit – it does not rely much on gossipy stuff, and it profiles – in some depth – performers not exposed to death elsewhere, such as Hope Davis and Jared Leto. It could stand to beef up its Canuck quotient, however.

While these shows may be too perky for some, eTalk, hosted by Tanya Kim, seems to need a jolt of Red Bull. (Maybe on that day the crew was suffering from festival fatigue.) Much of the episode offered little in the way of insight – we were told that Sarah Polley was seen leaving the Varsity theater via the underground and was ‘apparently not feeling well,’ and that Harvey Keitel was spotted on Bloor Street toting a Prada bag.

The interesting stuff came with the introduction of Quebec correspondent Sophie Grégoire, who spoke about the New Montreal FilmFest and the province’s hot movies. Although there was no mention of the controversy surrounding the World Film Festival that led to the creation of the NMFF, these segments can go far in introducing English-Canadian audiences to flicks from la belle province.

Inside Jam! is cursed with having to fill one hour every night. In this particular ep, the show made us sit through its ‘worst red carpet interviews’ at TIFF – not exactly riveting TV. But an advantage of its format is that it can go deeper than just Egoyan – it also had bits on Water, Lie with Me, Whole New Thing, The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico and C.R.A.Z.Y. But all that was somewhat undercut by cohost Daru Dhillon’s comment, ‘Now, when most people hear the phrase ‘Canadian movie,’ their initial reaction is to recoil in fear…’

While these shows could all use some tweaking, if they sustain – and build on – the Cancon coverage they displayed during TIFF, that can only be a good thing for domestic films and TV series. And now word comes that Global – so often lambasted for its level of support of local production – is picking up the Gemini Awards, which it will promote the hell out of through ET Canada. This is one of the gutsiest pro-Cancon moves by a national network in quite a while.

Maybe English Canada will develop that star system yet.