– CBS inherits #1 with Alliance MOW

The April 6 telecast of Alliance Communications’ mow The Inheritance gave cbs a Sunday night win in the u.s., beating abc and nbc in the 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. block with an 18 audience share and an 11.5 rating. X-Files, not nearly so beloved in the u.s. as it is here, came in with a 14 share and a 9.3 rating in its hour up against The Inheritance. The film, based on what is believed to be Louisa May Alcott’s first novel, was the number one mow of the overall week in the u.s.

ctv’s simulcast recorded 1.9 million viewers nationally, audience 2+, according to preliminary numbers from Nielsen Media Research. The film was produced with Cosgrove/Meurer Productions and TeleVest. Alliance owns worldwide rights, which it likely ably sold through mip-tv given the North American numbers.

Elsewhere on the ratings landscape, maybe the audience is fed up with repeats, but audience volume is rather miserable for the end of cocooning season. Seinfeld was the number one program on the Toronto/Hamilton People Meters for the week ending April 6, with a mere 10.6 rating. X-Files, which hits 22+ on occasion, is in second with a 10.2.

The numbers are low enough to put the five-day average of Wheel of Fortune in eighth position, tied with an er repeat and 20/20, all holding a 7.2 rating. Jeopardy is tied for 11th spot with 60 Minutes and Spin City with 6.9. Global’s mid-season lob, The Practice, makes an appearance in 20th spot at 5.7.

With an eye to May screenings next month, potential new holdings for the Canadian private broadcasters include Homicide: Life on the Street, which is taking a healthy chunk of the non-20/20 audience in the Friday 10 p.m. slot but is getting into the country only via nbc.

Arsenio is off the potentials slate for the 1997/98 season, axed after five episodes.

In the u.s. the season finale of Party of Five scored its highest ratings ever. In Canada, Global’s Hockey Night in Canada telecast left Party on the shelf. It has yet to air it, although Fox likely scooped a good chunk of the audience April 9.

Look for the franchise to increase on wic property Nash Bridges after Don Johnson, 47, generates ink by preparing to marry Jodi O’Keefe, 18, who plays his daughter in the series.

Count Linehan on wic’s slate for next year, with another 39 episodes commissioned from Electric Entertainment. In the ‘There’s something wrong with the world’ category, cbs has canceled EZ Streets but renewed The Price Is Right for a 26th season. It’s television’s longest running game show. EZ Streets averaged a 5.6 rating and a 10 share in the u.s. in its brief reincarnation in April.

-B’casters question Cancon primetime regs

It was rather tame to the naked eye, but Can-Pro’s blue-chip panel, Friends in High Places, vetted its share of mind-candy moments.

Attracting more than 350 attendees to the Toronto-based festivities this year, Can-Pro’s flagship symposium put eight high-profile broadcasting executives on stage to discuss the state of the nation: CanWest Global Systems president Jim Sward, ctv president John Cassaday, WIC Television president Jim Macdonald, chum coo Fred Sherratt, Baton coo Bruce Cowie, Lisa De Wilde, president of tmn, ytv president Paul Robertson, and Tele-Metropole’s Andre Provencher, all moderated by ctv news anchor Lloyd Robertson.

On the list of dialogue we’re avoiding because we don’t quite know what to do with it: Sward blessing a separated Quebec, any comments on women adding ‘vitality’ to the industry, and Victor Rabinovitch, assistant deputy minister of Canadian Heritage, rising to the microphone during the question period, rhyming off the budgets for a litany of production funds, and asking the execs to justify the allocation of a percentage of the moneys to industrial Canadian production.

More to the programming point, and not particularly inspiring foreshadowing considering the glut of Canadian programming available, loosening the regulations dictating the percentage of Canadian drama and variety that must be scheduled in primetime windows got some attention.

According to Cassaday, forcing Cancon into primetime creates a no-win situation. ‘As long as we continue to pit our best against theirs, we’re not going to develop access to Canadian programs.’

Ditto Sherratt, who says there’s a great preoccupation with two things in this country: category 7, 8 and 9 programming, and the corridor from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ‘We need the flexibility to be able to schedule Canadian programming where we can get some audience.’

Both Macdonald and Sward, however, put the emphasis on producing competitive drama product, with Macdonald making the oft-stated point that the system is in need of a regulatory environment driven by quality, not quantity. ‘It’s the audience that will drive the revenue and we need high quality in primetime.’

Sward points out that competitive product means producing more than 13 episodes and that requires some serious cash. ‘We’ve got to produce hotter entertainment programming and we’ve got to find more ways to get a volume of audience for it,’ as in the Traders virtual simulcast deal with cbc announced this month.

Also of note – if Rabinovitch is any indication – the debate is escalating over the role of industrial programming in the Canadian system.

Cassaday takes issue with the lack of media attention generated by ctv’s F/X the Series versus the accolades garnered by Atlantis Films’ Traders, simply because the latter is more ably wrapped in the flag.

Sward counters that there needs to be a decision on whether Canadian programming is a commercial and industrial policy or a cultural strategy. The industrial series on CanWest do ‘incredibly well’ for the network/system, but ‘in a political forum or within 10 feet of the crtc, you won’t hear me talking about them.’

Sherratt, echoing Cassaday, says industrial production provides jobs, pays taxes, etc., and is of equal weight to those productions that are on-screen identifiably Canadian. ‘I think you’re wrong. I think we should talk about them.’

-Incumbents chasing news, sports

Such strange things happening in news and sports across the Canadian spectrum.

CBC News at 11 has a new glitzy ‘What’s On’ type offering, listing arts events against a color-flashing background complete with technopop theme music. The April 11 telecast came complete with the arts report showing footage from a music video where one naked person after another crawls through a window. The clip in which the artist admits liking both men and women ended up on screen and not on the cutting room floor. It’s hard to say for sure, but it seems cbc can be counted amongst those newscasters looking to woo the younger than 55+ generation.

In sports, the incumbents are looking to cut ctv’s grass before it gets Sports/Specials and CTV Sports Net, its regional sports service, into mainstream play.

The latest news, after Headline Sports and tsn made moves earlier this month, are the machinations at CanWest and The New VR.

All of a sudden, Global is the official golf network, ‘Home of The Masters,’ and has launched a new 13-episode weekly series, Get a Grip on Golf. A bid to block The Golf Channel, or establishing a stronger sports franchise before the niche services are up and running? Maybe we’re reading too much into it, but it’s a little left of normal to see so much primetime promotion energy allocated to sports. Get a Grip on Golf is produced by Greenlight Entertainment and Lone Eagle Enterprises.

(The Masters, incidentally, logged a 15 on the Toronto/ Hamilton Metres, meaning almost 20% of all households watching tv at the time were tuned into golf.)

Not to be outdone, chum’s The New VR is pushing local sports to the top of its news agenda, giving it more time on its regular telecast as well as taking an aggressive approach to on-air promotions.

The station will launch the Labatt’s VR-Blue Road Crew sports team this summer, which will host boating events and summer rec sports events. There’ll be a new VR Baseball Team and the return of The Sultans of Swing golf team. Professional events added to its Raptors telecast are the 1997 Boston Marathon April 21, and The Queens Park Grand Prix, a cycle, rollerblade and wheelchair race in downtown t.o. July 13. Olympic medalist Curt Harnett is reportedly working with The New VR on a one-hour special on the race.

Meanwhile, Headline Sports is targeting the advertising community, promising the lowest male cpm on the air. ‘Don’t think of us as just another cable network. Think of us as 2,000,000 rabid sports fans.’

tsn has its landmark three-year agreement with Major League Baseball to be the exclusive English- and French-language broadcaster of the World Series, American League and National League Championship Series, the MLB Division Series and the All-Star Game. No one is making official complaint noises, but chances are tsn’s licence conditions are being probed with a sharp instrument.

-Discovery commissioning

After reaching its budget maximum and putting a halt to commissioning and acquiring Canadian product earlier this year, Discovery Channel Canada is propping the door open again at the Banff Television Festival. Pitching sessions will run June 9 through 13, with proposals required in-house by May 21. Program manager Carole MacKinnon is pointperson.

To date, Discovery has brought more than 30 non-fiction series to air. Its ‘spring launch’ April 28 will showcase three new strands; Disaster!, The Professionals, and Spirit of the Yukon.

New seasons of Buck Staghorn’s Animal Bites, Wildlife, Discover Magazine, Beyond 2000, and Journeys will also launch.

The fourth season of Journeys is being produced independently by production company Indigo Moon Pictures for the first time.

Discovery is taking the majority of equity rights and tvo a minority equity position and a second window which begins June 21. Indigo Moon owns international rights, the copyright, and shares Canadian rights with Discovery.

-Disney barks, HM video sales how high

With the nod to Can-Pro, one final note on promotions. This month, Disney managed to data bank the names and addresses of 5,000 dogs and mail them invitations to a walk to celebrate the home video release of 101 Dalmatians.

The April 12 1.01-mile ‘Fun Walk’ wove through Central Park, beginning with official barks from the film’s canine stars Pongo and Perdy and wound up with a pooch party including doggy psychic readings, pet portraits, and booths including everything from the American Kennel Club and the New York Humane Society to Yuppie Puppy Pet Care and Holistic Veterinary Care. It’s hard to know whether to laugh, cry, or simply bow to the master.

Using the Disney model, the possibilities are endless with the release of Crash to home video: demolition derby spectacular, David Cronenberg and James Spader waving the white flag, the Playboy Channel and St. John’s Ambulance sharing booth space, all aimed at ensuring this particular Canadian film spends equal time on the ‘New Releases’ shelf.