Canadian Broadcasters to Play for Keeps at Los Angeles Screenings

[Sal]

This article from The Hollywood Reporter discusses the strategies that the various Canadian TV networks will take out of the US Fall TV Upfronts as everyone will try to close the gap between them and CTV in the ratings battle which CTV has dominated in recent years thanks to hits like "The Big Bang Theory", "Two and a Half Men", "American Idol", and many others.

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Canadian Broadcasters to Play for Keeps at Los Angeles Screenings
2:14 PM PDT 5/10/2013 by Etan Vlessing

It's gloves off as arch-rival Global Television looks to unlock CTV's hold on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. with "The Big Bang Theory."

TORONTO – It’s always an open question whether Canadian broadcasters, arriving in Los Angeles this weekend for the L.A. Screenings, will be high rollers or tightwads as they do deals with their Hollywood suppliers.
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But don’t look for Canadian ratings-leader CTV, long branded as the heavy for buying up product to take it away from arch-rival Global Television, to be any less competitive.

“Sometimes yes, we’ll play defense and take a show to keep it away” warned CTV president of programming and sports Phil King ahead of the Canadians’ annual Hollywood shopping expedition.

Competitive pressures on the Canadians, who do volume buying via output deals at the Screenings, may well peak when it comes to shopping for Thursday nights.

Barbara Williams, senior vp content at Global Television-parent Shaw Media, has a strong Thursday night with Fox’s Glee at 9 p.m. against Grey's Anatomy on CTV, and CBS’ Elementary at 10 p.m.

But Global has a 8 p.m. Thursday night hole since ABC canceled Last Resort and nothing has managed to fill the void.

“There’s an 8 o’clock issue for us potentially, as none of the other options have worked as well. There’s room to play around,” Williams said.

CTV doesn’t have a 8 p.m. hole as it has in The Big Bang Theory the highest rated show on Canadian TV.

But that's not stopping King from keeping an eye open for a rookie show in that time slot as CTV and Global fight a continuing war of attrition in Los Angeles.

“If the best show is at Thursday at 8 p.m., we’ll take a run at it. If it’s an okay show, we’ll leave it alone,” King said.

Unlike other foreign buyers who are mostly window-shoppers at the Screenings, the Canadians remain fiercely competitive because they know momentum can shift so quickly when your primetime schedule is a mish-mash of five U.S. networks, if you include The CW.

Malcolm Dunlop, executive vp of programming and operations at Rogers Media, which buys at the Screenings for the City network back home, knows how network fortunes can change on a dime.

Dunlop two years ago came away from the Screenings with two game changers, CBS’ Person of Interest and 2 Broke Girls, to get City back it the game against perennial players Global Television and CTV.

He'll be looking for a similar jackpot this coming week.

“We have a pretty solid schedule. This is more of a year to try to go down there and pick the best shows we can and come away with the best schedule we can,” Dunlop said of this year’s annual TV shopping spree.

The Canadians buy on the hop in Los Angeles as they typically simulcast, or air American prime time series in the same time slot as they hold on U.S. networks south of the border, to maximize audience and advertising revenues.

But precisely because their TV schedules hew close to the U.S. networks, a Canadian schedule minted in early June may well blow up in October as the Big Four broadcast networks make their first cancelations.

What’s more, the Canadians are under pressure from their studio suppliers to hit spending targets before flying back home to pitch domestic advertisers at their own Upfront presentations.

That, and the continuing importance of U.S. hits like the Survivor franchise on Global, Modern Family on City and American Idol on CTV to their primetime campaigns has the Canadians still paying progressively more each year as they bargain for rookie and returning shows with their traditional suppliers.

“We live up to our reputation for being reasonable and sensible,” Shaw Media’s Williams said as she gave the Canadians’ traditional pledge to be frugal before their buying frenzy at the Hollywood studios’ annual TV bazaar for international buyers gets underway.

“That said, we need to stay in the game. Reasonable and sensible gets uniquely defined each year by what’s going on in the marketplace,” she adds.

CTV’s King similarly insists his network won’t be shy about flexing its muscles in Los Angeles.

It helps King and his team can test new U.S. shows on the secondary CTV Two network before migrating breakout series to the main CTV network.

And CTV has in parent phone giant Bell Canada deep pockets to buy up rookie shows that have potential hit written all over them.

“They (Bell) let us invest in programming when it may change the picture for us. We’re not constrained there,” King said.

The Canadians should conclude the bulk of their deal-making by next Wednesday or Thursday before flying back to Toronto to unveil their fall schedules.

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Right now I would say that the one new series that everyone will be after will be Michael J Fox's new show. A Canadian superstar about to make a long-anticipated comeback in a series that is sure to bring in big ratings will surely boost the fortunes of whatever network happens to land him.

I'll have full details on the Canadian fall schedules when they become available later this month.

[Yong Fang]

Question: Why doesn't the Big Four networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) have affiliates in Canada? Is there a law that prevents that?

I have asked Canadians what their television is like, and they said it is a mixture of American, British (being a Commonwealth Nation) and Canadian programming. The only Canadian show I ever watched all the episodes was The Trailer Park Boys, and the only other Canada series I have seen was Corner Gas (which was a good show).

[Sal]

Originally Posted by Yong Fang

Question: Why doesn't the Big Four networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) have affiliates in Canada? Is there a law that prevents that?

I have asked Canadians what their television is like, and they said it is a mixture of American, British (being a Commonwealth Nation) and Canadian programming. The only Canadian show I ever watched all the episodes was The Trailer Park Boys, and the only other Canada series I have seen was Corner Gas (which was a good show).

That's a good question. I'm not familiar with a lot of the Canadian or American TV laws but I do know that such laws do exist that you can't have ABC or CBS stations in Canada. I have tried in vain to try to get Antenna TV and ME-TV in Canada but for now it's simply illegal. But it's still possible to have a Canadian version of a US station (which we have with MTV, Nickelodeon, and ESPN Classic to name a few) with different programming in certain time slots because of what is known as the CanCon rule which means that each station has to show a specified percentage of Canadian shows at certain times, particularly in prime time, or you could lose your licence. So if we were to have a Me-TV Canada it would probably include stuff like "Corner Gas", "SCTV" and "Kids In The Hall" as well as "I Love Lucy", "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Dick Van Dyke" . Personally, I'm still holding out for "The Trouble With Tracy".

[Yong Fang]

How much original programming is Canadian?

There is (or was) a law in Canada that radio stations had to play something like 60% Canadian music on the airwaves. So I am thinking that is a lot of Rush, Triumph, Helix, Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray on the radio.

I live in China and what is very frustrating is that the networks or Hulu are not allowed to stream content outside the USA. I have never understood that and it really, really makes me mad because I do not see the logic behind it. I was even trying to watch some SNL snipets from a news site, nope "Content cannot be streamed outside the United States." I have little problems watching what I want, other websites stream content, which I consider theft. But it is the only way I get to watch my shows.

So this makes me wonder if broadcast content for some reason cannot leave the country of origin because of legalities or other such nonsense. I also think that Canadians think that they are better and more superior than Americans and do not want too much of American culture rubbing off on them. I say that it is OK for Canada to have their own identity, but there are many things in both of our collective cultures that can be merged. Football, films, movies etc.

[Sal]

Roughly speaking, the Canadian content rules mean that on radio, at least 40% of the music that gets played has to be by a Canadian artist. That means more Celine Dion, Anne Murray, Justin Bieber, Nickelback, Gordon Lightfoot, The Guess Who, Rush, etc. than any sane human being should be exposed to in their lifetime!

For television, the CBC will usually decide to carry 100% Canadian-made shows with very few exceptions, most notably Coronation Street. The other main networks and specialty channels will typically import series from the 5 main US networks to beef up their prime-time lineups but they also have to follow the "CanCon" rules which are:

The prime time hours are 6 pm to 12 am. At least 50% of this time period has to filled with Canadian shows. At least 8 hours per week between 7 and 11 pm have to be used for specific types of programming: drama (which includes sitcoms), variety series, documentaries, and entertainment shows. All commercials are limited to 12 minutes per hour. That means a half hour sitcom excluding commercials would run for about 24 minutes.

Of course, the networks do try to get around the rules by using numerous sneaky tricks to bend without breaking the rules. The most common is called 'simsubbing'. That means that in prime time US series are shown at the exact same time on Canadian stations as they are on US channels and are often simulcast in a rather devious fashion. For example, if I wanted to watch "The Big Bang Theory" on Buffalo's CBS station instead of Toronto's CTV channel, as soon as the show starts the TV signal automatically switches to the CTV feed, commercials and all, until the show ends. Then it switches back to the Buffalo feed. This can be very annoying for the purists out there watching, and never more so than at Super Bowl time when, as soon as the long pre-game show starts, Canadian viewers do not get to see the over-hyped Super Bowl ads that are sometimes more exciting and more talked about than the game itself. Instead we see normal Canadian ads that get seen on a regular basis and a large amount of promos for that network's upcoming series, the majority of which are - you guessed it - American. This has gone on for as long as I can remember and it's what we have to live with every day.

[Yong Fang]

How about a 24 hour Rush station? Has that ever been tried?

Another thing, bring back the Trailer Park Boys! One of my favorite lines......


Randy: I cant get stoned, Ricky.

Ricky: What do you mean? Its sh*tty work. Everybody does that, all
right? Carpenters, electricians, dishwashers, floor cleaners,
lawyers, doctors, fu**in politicians, CBC employees, principals,
people who paint the lines on the fu*kin roads, get stoned, it'll
be fun, get to work! Oh, and this is the most important, go down to
the Sh*t-Mart. I need a bag of chicken chips. If they dont have
chicken, get me dill pickle. And I want a chocolate milk.

What in the hell are chicken chips???

[Sal]

Here's another article I found from the Channel Canada website which might help to predict which new US series could be picked up by the Canadian networks. Each Canadian network has an agreement with each of the US networks with regards to which shows are picked up but sometimes exceptions are made in the spirit of competition and ratings. Take a look and see if you can guess who will go where. The full details should come out in a couple of weeks.

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List of new scripted shows for 2013-14 and production studios

In an attempt to determine which shows have been picked up by the Canadian networks at the L.A. Screenings, here is a list of the new scripted shows for next season, arranged by production studio.

The deals between the Canadian networks and the studios in recent years have been as follows:

Bell/CTV with Warner Bros. and ABC Studios
Shaw/Global with 20th Century Fox and CBS Studios
Rogers/City with Universal
Sony does not appear to have exclusive deals with one Canadian network

However, there are a few rare exceptions - the best examples from last season - Bell Media picked up The New Normal (20th Century Fox) for CTV. Also, Shaw Media acquired Zero Hour (ABC Studios) for Global, months after it was purchased by Bell Media for CTV.
Even with the existing output deals, arrangements may be made with other networks to purchase shows from other studios depending on several factors, including simsub opportunities or for strategic purposes, whether to keep shows on the shelf pending cancellation or
keeping them away from rival competitors.

20th Century Fox

COMEDY
Back in the Game (Wednesdays 8:30pm, ABC)
The Crazy Ones (Thursdays 9:00pm, CBS)
Dads (Tuesdays 8:00pm, FOX)
Enlisted (Fridays 9:30pm, FOX)
Friends with Better Lives (Midseason, CBS)
Murder Police (Animated) (Midseason, FOX)

DRAMA
24: Live Another Day (Spring 2014, FOX)
Crisis (Midseason, NBC)
Gang Related (Spring 2014, FOX)
Mind Games (Midseason, ABC)
Sleepy Hollow (Mondays 9:00pm, FOX)
Wayward Pines* (Spring 2014, FOX)

* From FX Productions

ABC Studios

COMEDY
Mixology (Midseason, ABC)
Trophy Wife (Tuesdays 9:30pm, ABC)

DRAMA
Betrayal (Sundays 10:00pm, ABC)
Intelligence* (Midseason, CBS)
Killer Women (Midseason, ABC)
Lucky 7 (Tuesdays 10:00pm, ABC)
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Tuesdays 8:00pm, ABC)
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (Thursdays 8:00pm, ABC)
Resurrection (Midseason, ABC)

* Co-produced with CBS TV Studios

CBS Television Studios

COMEDY
The Millers (Thursdays 8:30pm, CBS)
We Are Men (Mondays 8:30pm, CBS)

DRAMA
Reckless (Midseason, CBS)
Reign (Thursdays 9:00pm, CW)
Star Crossed (Midseason, CW)

Sony Pictures Television

COMEDY
The Goldbergs (Tuesdays 9:00pm, ABC)
The Michael J Fox Show (Thursdays 9:30pm, NBC)
Us & Them (Midseason, FOX)
Welcome to the Family (Thursdays 8:30pm, NBC)

DRAMA
The Blacklist (Mondays 10:00pm, NBC)
The Night Shift (Midseason, NBC)
Rake (Midseason, FOX)

Universal Television

COMEDY
About a Boy (Midseason, NBC)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Tuesdays 8:30pm, FOX)
The Family Guide (Midseason, NBC)
Sean Saves the World (Thursdays 9:00pm, NBC)

DRAMA
Chicago PD (Midseason, NBC)
Crossbones (Midseason, NBC)
Dracula (Fridays 10:00pm, NBC)
Ironside (Wednesdays 10:00pm, NBC)

Warner Bros. Television

COMEDY
Mom (Mondays 9:30pm, CBS)
Super Fun Night (Wednesdays 9:30pm, ABC)
Surviving Jack (Midseason, FOX)
Undateable (Midseason, NBC)

DRAMA
The 100 (Midseason, CW)
Almost Human (Mondays 8:00pm, FOX)
Believe (Midseason, NBC)
Hostages (Mondays 10:00pm, CBS)
The Originals* (Tuesdays 8:00pm, CW)
The Tomorrow People (Wednesdays 9:00pm, CW)

* Co-produced with CBS Television Studios