Next season’s cbc all-Canadian primetime will be without the Canadian drama entries of the last two seasons. Liberty Street and Side Effects hit the skids this month and Straight Up and The Rez are moving in to fill the void.

The final episodes of Liberty Street and Side Effects will air Feb. 14 and 16 respectively after performing poorly in a number of areas, says Phyllis Platt, executive director of arts and entertainment programming for cbc.

Ratings for Liberty Street were averaging about 450,000 viewers, rising to 595,000 on Jan. 31. ‘It was improving but with a lead-in of Mr. Bean at 1.6 million viewers, it wasn’t enough.’

Side Effects was averaging about 650,000 viewers, which ran to 885,000 Feb. 2, but it was only the second time this season it had topped 800,000 with a lead-in of the Rita & Friends at 1.3 million. Playing in the Friday 9 p.m. slot up against CanWest Global’s X-Files was tough competition. ‘I don’t think they did badly; they just didn’t make the cut,’ says Platt.

Besides poor ratings, the programs were falling down with cbc focus groups which measure audience loyalty and enjoyment index. Both programs will resurface in the summer rerun sked.

The second string will surface Feb. 19 and Feb. 23 with Straight Up premiering in the Monday, 9:30 p.m. slot led in by This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and The Rez at 8 p.m. Fridays following Royal Canadian Air Farce.

Straight Up, produced by Alliance and cbc, has a broad skew, attracting a young audience because it reflects their lives and adults wanting to know what their kids are up to, says Platt. Thus the This Hour lead-in, which attracts an adult audience but also is running what Platt calls surprisingly strong demos in the 18-34 group, regularly pulling in about 400,000 viewers in that age range.

Ditto for The Rez, produced by Brian Dennis and Bruce Macdonald, which focuses on young people but is family-oriented too and may keep a healthy share of the Air Farce audience, which is regularly averaging 1.5 million viewers 2+.

To accommodate Straight Up and The Rez, Rita & Friends is moving to the 9 p.m. Friday slot, repeats of This Hour will move to Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and Mr. Bean will sandwich The Rez by filling the Friday, 8:30 p.m. void.

A new one-hour Canadian drama could be part of the pack for next season. The cbc is in negotiations with Fogbound Films for The Nova Scotia Project, the brainchild of North of 60 executive producers Wayne Grigsby and Barbara Samuels. A decision is expected within the next two to three weeks.

cbc is also kicking off its new biography series, which will run in primetime in October on the 1996/97 sked. Through the cbc and members of the independent production community, a minimum of 24 one-hour episodes will be produced and have two airings on the network.

The series is being made with the participation of CBC Newsworld, which will rebroadcast episodes. Corporate sponsorship is being invited.

‘It’s a huge opportunity for both the independent production community and the cbc,’ says Don Richardson, executive in charge of production for cbc’s documentary unit.

Commissioning the biographies will begin in March and in the meantime a commissioning editor is being sought.

The biographies are planned as exhaustive looks at subjects from various fields, endeavors and eras, focusing on ‘the famous, the not yet famous and the never to be famous.’

Barri Cohen, cochair of the Independent Film Caucus, says the organization supports the series and its pledge to go beyond the ‘stars of the week’ biography format. ‘We would like to see the commissioning editor come from the independent production community and a diverse range of work coming from more than one or two production houses.’