There’s lots of speculation about who the winners and the losers of the WGA strike are going to be, but one thing’s for sure – this stoppage is a godsend for our homegrown stuff. You know, that which is made ‘for, by, and about Canadians.’

It’s great to be Canadian right about now. Our networks can pile up on and trumpet their homegrowns six ways to Sunday without being called scabs or heretics. However, aside from milking the benefits of softer competition in certain timeslots, none of them appear to be doing anything radically different when it comes to their Cancon.

CBC hit the new year running, with a drama-rich and better-promoted schedule, the newest offerings of which include jPod, The Border, Sophie and MVP, as well as the return of Little Mosque on the Prairie and Heartland, but executive director of programming Kirstine Layfield says the net was going to do that anyway. ‘We were on an up and up trend,’ she says.

It’s pretty much business as usual for CTV, too, with its homegrown posse of Corner Gas, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Whistler, the mini Would Be Kings and reruns of MOWs Sticks and Stones and Doomstown. Global, meanwhile, has finished its first season of ‘da Kink in my Hair and launched new B.C.-based series The Guard.

Audiences have, on the whole, responded well. While the CBC’s MVP and jPod premiered to less than 500,000, Layfield says that was expected, given the challenging timeslot for the former (Friday night), and niche nature of the latter.

CTV’s Corner Gas, meanwhile, continues to knock it out of the park with auds of more than a million, Little Mosque is going strong, boldly flirting with that million mark, and Heartland is doing a very respectable business with 700,000. Among the new offerings, The Border is pulling in around 700,000, Sophie around 600,000, and Global’s The Guard more than 800,000.

Consultant Barry Kiefl of Canadian Media Research says he doesn’t recall ever having this many Canadian shows doing this well at the same time. And sure, the strike can’t hurt.

‘Each show depends on what it’s up against,’ Kiefl says, and if CBC can have The Border hanging around a few channels over from where 24 should have been – on Global – so much the better.

Unbeknownst to many, strike or no strike, January also happens to be prime time to launch a new show.

‘I’ve always advised any programmer who wanted to know when to schedule a show to premiere it in January,’ says Kiefl, noting that viewership is double that of the summer and 20% larger than in March.

‘January for Canadian shows is a great time to start,’ concurs Layfield, who masterminded the Little Mosque premiere at that time a year ago. ‘When I introduced it,’ she recalls, ‘the producers thought we were somehow relegating it to midseason, not taking it as seriously. But in the end, you’re not up against the American juggernauts that are making so much noise. Plus it’s dark outside, it’s cold, and the February sweeps are just around the corner.’

Still, Layfield points out that current opportunities notwithstanding, bringing in audiences is never a walk in the park, and there remains plenty of competition out there from the Houses, American Idols and Losts of this world.

‘Yes, there’s a slight benefit – there’s not as much American programming,’ she says. ‘But I don’t want to take anything away from [the Canadian shows’] producers or to say it’s because of the writers strike. They have done a really good job at bringing up their game and making sure Canadians want to watch.’

Whether the numbers hold as time marches on depends on the shows themselves, says Kiefl. ‘If it’s good-quality programming it’ll develop an audience and keep it. It’s not just a matter of being the second-best movie at the [multiplex] and you go to see that because the other is sold out or had technical problems.’