Atlantis Communications has announced that WIC Western International Communications is the Canadian broadcaster on its new $35-million, 22-episode series NightMan (as reported in Playback First Take newsletter, June 23). Atlantis and wic have also agreed to a two-year arrangement to jointly develop and provide funding for primetime tv drama series and tv movies.

NightMan, a live-action series based on a comic-book superhero and already produced for one year by Vancouver’s Crescent Entertainment for Tribune Entertainment in the u.s., will be remade into a Canadian-content program, with Atlantis acting as a coproduction partner and worldwide distributor outside the u.s.

Crescent’s Alan Eastman, executive producer of NightMan, says all the creative heads on the project are Canadian and that the change in content is a byproduct of necessary changes to the program.

‘The [content] reworking has more to do with a general reworking of the show than straight content. We did a series of recasts, which we would have done whether the show aired in the United States or came here,’ says Eastman. ‘We feel we can make a much better show up here.’

NightMan, the second-best rated syndicated show in the u.s. last year, second only to Atlantis’ Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, is the tale of a saxophone player who, through a near-death experience, is mysteriously endowed with extraordinary powers that he uses to battle evil.

The program will season-share a slot with Total Recall (Team Entertainment/Alliance Communications) on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. Night Man will air on OnTv through to January, when it will be replaced by Total Recall.

In other wic programming news, Emily of New Moon is not scheduled to air on the private broadcaster this season as planned last year. It will remain solely with the cbc.

As part of its Cancon contribution, wic will air instead half-hour Atlantis shows Mysterious Island, a New Zealand coprod period drama, and My Life as a Dog (working title), which reportedly does not resemble the movie, starting in the Sunday 7 p.m. slot.

Canadian films will also make up part of OnTv’s Home & Away film slot, Thursdays from 9-11 p.m.

Other Canadian representation on wic’s sked is David Cubitt, who will star with William Devane in the cbs family cop drama Turks (USA Networks Studio Television). The program is yet to be slotted.

Turks is among the vast array of new primetime American programming that includes Encore! Encore!, a new sitcom starring Nathan Lane (Birdcage) about a famous opera star who loses his voice and must return home to Mom. It will air Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.

In the Wednesday 9:30 p.m. slot is Maggie Winters, a new sitcom starring Faith Ford (Murphy Brown), who returns home to Mom after she catches her husband cheating; and in the Friday 9 p.m. slot is Buddy Faro, a one-hour drama executive produced by Mark Frost (Twin Peaks) and Charles Haid (Murder One). The show stars Dennis Farina and Frank Whaley.

CHUM debuts drama series

although the specialty channels have been exclusively a second (third, fourth) window for Canadian drama series, chum is changing the status quo this season.

Making their debut on Space: The Imagination Station are First Wave (Vidatron Entertainment Group in association with Pearson Television International), Highlander: The Raven (Fireworks Entertainment), The Crow (Crescent Entertainment), and the full 20 one-hours of Lexx: The Dark Zone from Salter Street Films.

Isme Bennie, Space’s director of programming and acquisitions, says, ‘We are buying CHUM Television English national rights on all those series, which we’ve done as an organization before primarily on Canadian movies, but now with more stations it makes sense to get into the series business. But in each case, it’s not just Space, it’s a chum buy for all of English Canada, and then we figure out between the various services the best way to place and use the material we buy.’

First Wave is the first new independently produced, Canadian science-fiction series to be licensed for broadcast on Space. The 22 one-hour episodes, created by Chris Brancato (Hoodlum, Species 2, The X-Files, Outer Limits) and shot in Vancouver, follow the story of a reluctant hero who must save the Earth from a hostile alien takeover.

Francis Ford Coppola is executive producer with Brancato and Vidatron’s Academy Award-winning Larry Sugar (The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, The Black Stallion, Bram Stoker’s Dracula).

Highlander: The Raven continues the adventures of the original series with 22 one-hour episodes. The show stars Elizabeth Gracen as the new immortal.

The Crow, based on the movie, has 22 one-hour episodes following the adventures of a musician who returns from the dead to seek revenge on his and his fiancee’s killers.

Lexx continues the ‘darkly weird, edgy and sexy intergalactic voyage of the Lexx, a genetically altered dragonfly-shaped bug about the size of Manhattan that is used as a spaceship and as the most destructive weapon in two universes.’ The series is prelicensed to Canal+ of France and rtl in Germany.

Space will also air six new half-hours of Originals in Space (Sleeping Giant Productions), the ‘video encyclopedia’ of people who have been catalysts in space exploration and science.

The schedule and start dates are not yet confirmed.

National TV unity

as part of its fall launch, the cbc announced it was taking a second window on CBC Newsworld’s Pamela Wallin and On the Arts with Laurie Brown.

‘Wallin and Brown both have solid followings that have come from years of association with cbc and CBC Newsworld,’ says Slawko Klymkiw, executive director, network programming. ‘We think given… the respect they have in the community and among the audience, it makes enormous sense when you’re trying to find synergy between two networks.’

While this synergy is a means to share their tv toys, it’s also a way to reduce programming costs. Klymkiw says Pamela Wallin Live is ‘a reasonably priced show. We are trying to keep the cost of the afternoons to a point that it’s reasonable and that it’s not going to overexpense the entire schedule.’

Currently scheduled on weekdays at 10 p.m. on Newsworld and at 1 p.m. on cbc, replacing All My Children, Pamela Wallin Live will reach ‘a female demographic,’ Klymkiw says, ‘and then in a sense, between Midday and Pamela Wallin, I consider [it] to be smart talk for a demographic that’s home.’

On the Arts currently airs on Newsworld Thursdays at 8:30 p.m., 12:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. and Saturdays at 6:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. et. It will air on cbc on Tuesdays at 7 p.m.

Klymkiw doesn’t think the cbc and Newsworld audiences will overlap for the shows. ‘We’re an over-the-air broadcaster that has a larger base, and a lot of people who watch, probably do not watch [Pamela Wallin Live], and so it really is a different audience.

‘You want to make sure that you don’t hurt the primary broadcaster, in this case Newsworld. You want to make sure that you think there’s a supplementary audience for you when you take a second window.’

New to the ratings sheet

so, it comes to this: The Young and the Restless, which airs on Global at 4:30 p.m. daily, received a 5.7 dma rating (total 2+) during the week of June 8-14. According to Nielsen Media Research, ‘It’s not often that the consistently popular soap makes it to the number one position in Toronto, but there it is.’ Indeed.

Vancouverites, on the other hand, showed a different taste in programming. Due South received a 6.3 dma rating, making it number one during June 8-14. The Canuck favorite airs on Westcom TV Group-owned chan (bctv) on Sundays at 7 p.m.

During the week of June 8-14, Sliders, which premiered on May 17 following The X-Files season finale, reached the number 11 spot, up from 16th place the previous week, with a 4.2 dma rating. The series airs on Global in Toronto on Sundays at 10 p.m.

Squirting feces and killing Kenny seems to be a-ok at 10:30 p.m. in Toronto. Global’s South Park received a 4.2 dma rating during the week of June 1-7. Ironically, it tied for 17th place with Friends. Oh my god, they killed Phoebe!

TSN forms CFL huddle

following tsn’s acquisition of cfl broadcast rights for the next five seasons earlier this year, tsn kicks off the cfl season on Wednesday, July 1 (Canada Day) at 3 p.m. with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hosting the Montreal Alouettes.

In other tsn news, the sports net has extended its agreement with the ciau for five more years. The multimillion-dollar partnership deal will allow tsn to cover all major ciau championship events during 1999/2000 through 2003/04. One year remains on the existing agreement.

As part of the agreement, tsn will produce the national championship events including the Vanier Cup. While tsn maintains the rights to all events, the agreement will allow the ciau to develop packages with other tv nets for regular season games.

The sports net also reports that the Jamaica/Croatia World Cup soccer game on Sunday, June 14 at 3 p.m. attracted 514,000 hoolig… , sorry, fans.

Restored film takes flight

the first product of a $500,000 film restoration project will air on TMN-The Movie Network on Canada Day. The 1946 classic Bush Pilot, one of the first Canadian feature films ever made, will debut at 8 p.m. in newly restored form, thanks to MoviePix and the National Archives of Canada.

Kids these days…

the Comedy Network is adding to its late-night lineup with five guys from Alymer, Que. determined to make people laugh.

Y B Normal?, a new sketch comedy series starring Pierre-Hughes Dallaire, Matthiew Klinck, Ron Langton, Paolo Mancini and Tom Wieckowski, premiered on Comedy on June 19 at 11:30 p.m. The program is slotted after The Tom Green Show.

Aged between 19 and 20, the stars of the show describe themselves as ‘Kids in the Hall meets Monty Python on acid.’

The six half-hour series is shot on location in and around the Ottawa area, and features troupe member Dallaire’s claymation vignettes.

Y B Normal? is codirected by Klinck, associate produced by Wieckowski and directed and produced by Donna Leon-Miller of Genuine Pictures, Ottawa.