Bill Brioux notes that the Mother Corp is lurching back to the all CanCon prime time. That means Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune get the boot. (It BETTER not mean that Corrie is leaving, too ?!).
Brioux points out that the two have been pretty good to the CBC and even for their CanCon by bringing them into prime time with over a million viewers already tuned in. There aren't a lot of non-hockey related shows that can do the same. Things like Mercer or Dragon's Den can deliver those numbers but are a once a week hits. Coronation Street at the current 6:30 lead-in slot is pretty nichey at about 700,000 viewers.
Still, I don't feel that bad for the loss. I really hope that the CBC gets back to some basics with their line-up.
I've always been a fan of PBS. Over the decade as television has gone low brow, they have done things like expand Nova to two shows (the other being NOVA ScienceNow). Their "reality TV" offerings have been things like History Detectives and Antiques Road Show.
In just the past year they revamped some of their long-standing offerings without going bottom market.
The PBS Newshour got a complete overhaul and Frontline, their flagship news magazine which doesn't resort to the campy background music and silly over-dramatizations of the fifth estate et al, actually expanded to go year-round.
Their weekly Americana offerings continue to shine and are really something that I wish the CBC would try to emulate. American Masters and American Experience are the way a broadcaster can "reflect (insert country name here) and its regions to national and regional audiences" (source: CBC mandate). As a bonus, I can't imagine them being nearly as expensive to produce as a one hour drama.
Locally, the CBC has shown that they're willing to pluck (for better or worse) people with a track record from other networks, such as John Sauder and Janet Stewart. Nationally, CBC Newsworld smartly lured Lang and O'Leary from the century-plus section of the TV dial.
Maybe they want to look to other networks for high brow programming. Either rescuing something smart languishing on a low budget cable channel and looking to places like PBS to see that there is life after Jeopardy!
Brioux points out that the two have been pretty good to the CBC and even for their CanCon by bringing them into prime time with over a million viewers already tuned in. There aren't a lot of non-hockey related shows that can do the same. Things like Mercer or Dragon's Den can deliver those numbers but are a once a week hits. Coronation Street at the current 6:30 lead-in slot is pretty nichey at about 700,000 viewers.
Still, I don't feel that bad for the loss. I really hope that the CBC gets back to some basics with their line-up.
In just the past year they revamped some of their long-standing offerings without going bottom market.
The PBS Newshour got a complete overhaul and Frontline, their flagship news magazine which doesn't resort to the campy background music and silly over-dramatizations of the fifth estate et al, actually expanded to go year-round.
Their weekly Americana offerings continue to shine and are really something that I wish the CBC would try to emulate. American Masters and American Experience are the way a broadcaster can "reflect (insert country name here) and its regions to national and regional audiences" (source: CBC mandate). As a bonus, I can't imagine them being nearly as expensive to produce as a one hour drama.
Locally, the CBC has shown that they're willing to pluck (for better or worse) people with a track record from other networks, such as John Sauder and Janet Stewart. Nationally, CBC Newsworld smartly lured Lang and O'Leary from the century-plus section of the TV dial.
Maybe they want to look to other networks for high brow programming. Either rescuing something smart languishing on a low budget cable channel and looking to places like PBS to see that there is life after Jeopardy!
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