The real prize in Canadian drama production is not a Gemini Award or even a nomination – it’s keeping your series on the air. This has long been the case, but with the collapse of the international marketplace, increasingly fragmented audiences and the rise of reality TV, the odds against have become even greater. And that’s what makes Keatley MacLeod/Alliance Atlantis’ Cold Squad, nominated for nine Geminis for season five on CTV, a true champ.

Executive producer Julia Keatley is as aware of this as anyone – in addition to her duties on the series, she was recently named chair of the CFTPA. These dual responsibilities have recently had her jetting between Vancouver, where the program is shot, and Ontario for CFTPA board meetings. She is soon on her way to Ottawa for a ‘tete-a-tete’ with Minister of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps, to address, among other things, what needs to be done to keep Canadian drama alive.

While Keatley acknowledges the various factors behind the dwindling number of Canadian dramas, she is particularly insistent that the networks have to find time slots for Canuck shows that will allow them to find and build an audience.

‘Almost every Canadian drama series, whether it be on the CBC, Global or CTV, has had some real problems finding a home,’ she says.

For its first three seasons, Cold Squad, about a police team that specializes in ‘cold’ murder cases that have no corpse, suspects or evidence, aired Fridays at 10 p.m. before CTV moved it to 9 p.m. The show developed a healthy Friday fan base before the network then threw it in the face-off circle Saturdays at 8 p.m. against perennial CBC ratings monster Hockey Night in Canada. The cynical might say CTV hung the show out to dry, but Cold Squad V avoided elimination and its sixth season went to air Sept. 21. Keatley admits, however, that there has been some audience fallout.

‘There’s only so many Canadian viewers, and certainly the competition with a good game on Hockey Night in Canada is not easy,’ she says. ‘It’s a little bit easier out here in Vancouver, because the good games usually are earlier.’

Ratings indicate that Cold Squad appeals mostly to an over-25 female audience – not necessarily big hockey watchers.

‘The good news about older audiences is that they probably have more money than anybody else,’ Keatley notes. ‘Maybe advertisers should pay more attention to that.’

Keatley would love to get younger viewers on board, however, and the program addresses that with new episodes on topics relevant to young adults, such as the dangers of urban drag racing. What worries Keatley is that these younger eyeballs are likely eyeing a pint of beer at the local bar on Saturday nights.

Vying against US shows

CTV’s bread and butter is its U.S. programming, and last year many of the network’s American acquisitions, launched in more enviable time slots, went on to become hits. Canadian shows, meanwhile, waited in vain for some of these programs to get axed so they could claim those time slots as their own. As a result, Alliance Atlantis’ highly promoted lawyer drama The Associates did not nail down a slot until January – late to build a viewership – and was canceled after its second season.

If critics’ forecasts can be trusted, there are several bona fide U.S. hits on the way this season as well, which could relegate Canadian hopefuls – primarily AAC’s TV journalism drama 11th Hour – to the sidelines.

‘[U.S. programming] is part of what finances and allows us to stay alive, and yet I’d love to be on Monday or Tuesday at 10 p.m.,’ Keatley says. ‘A lot of Canadian drama series would do a lot better in those time slots. And the movies that have had success, particularly on CTV – it’s because they’ve gone into those traditional good slots.’

As for Cold Squad’s longevity, Keatley attributes it to the show’s self-perpetuating storyline a la Law & Order.

‘People watch drama series because they like either the stories or the characters, or hopefully a combination of both,’ she says. ‘With Cold Squad I think they’ve really liked the storylines and a strong female lead in Ali [Julie Stewart, nominated for best actress], and that has continued to be quite different, particularly in the Canadian world.’

Figuring out what viewers want has been an evolutionary process for Cold Squad’s producers, who also include Gigi Boyd, Gary Harvey, Matt MacLeod, Peter Mitchell and Steve Ord. In its earlier incarnations, the drama focused on the investigations taken on by police Sergeant Ali McCormick and her colleagues. But the show’s audience clamored to see more of the characters’ home lives, and the producers subsequently gave more screen time to personal relationships.

Although Keatley sees Cold Squad as distinctly Canadian, she believes the principal stumbling block to international success on par with, for example, the AAC/CBS/Jerry Bruckheimer Films forensic investigators drama CSI, is, simply, budgetary. (Cold Squad distributor AAC has sold the show to Australia and much of Europe.)

‘Our budgets [$1 million per episode] are one-fifth to one-quarter of what CSI is,’ she says. ‘It’s a huge difference. They have a hit that’s going to sell internationally and they’re covering probably 85% of their costs outside the U.S. We cover 20% outside of Canada. The economics are really different.’

With cop show Da Vinci’s Inquest, winner of the best dramatic series the past three years, shooting cross-town, there is some competition in getting the top crews. But this rivalry also drives the quality of both series higher.

‘People are looking at [Da Vinci’s and Cold Squad] and thinking, ‘These are good quality shows,” Keatley says. ‘They’re not going, ‘Gee, it looks Canadian.’ That really has gone away. People are proud to watch them and proud to work on them.’

-www.coldsquad.com