Changing picture - CHCH-TV - Jan. 3, 2009

Changing picture

CHCH was once a giant locally and
nationally, but it's been on a long, slow decline


By Eric Kohanik
Special to The Hamilton Spectator

(Jan 3, 2009)

"THIS IS CHCH-TV ... HAMILTON ... CANADA."

These simple words would proudly identify Hamilton's television station to viewers throughout each day.

That was back in the early 1970s, the glory days for CHCH - a time when the broadcaster was a major force on the local media scene and on the verge of dominating the entire Canadian TV spectrum.

In the 1960s, it became the first independent TV station in English Canada. Later that decade, it became one of the first stations in North America to broadcast in colour.

By the 1980s, satellite technology had helped the Hamilton channel beam its signal to viewers across all of Canada, making it a veritable satellite superstation.

Most importantly, few could match its impact on local programming and dedication to community. Viewers simply knew it by its place on the dial, Channel 11.

It's a different story today.

Over the years, the face of CHCH has become battle-scarred by competitive assaults, rising program costs, advertising declines and audience fragmentation. Added to that are several ownership changes, staff reductions and budget cutbacks, all diluting CHCH's national identity and diminishing its once-forceful local presence.

Today it is called E!, one piece of a Canadian mini-network that includes stations in Victoria, Kelowna, Red Deer and Montreal. All are owned by Winnipeg-based Canwest Global Communications Corp. , with other TV properties across the country, including 21 cable specialty channels.

The E! moniker comes from the American-based cable network whose programming is made up mostly of entertainment coverage, Hollywood tattletale shows and low-rent reality programming. Canada's version of E! is a hybrid, combining that fare with major American network shows and other syndicated programming. Rounding out the daily schedule are shows that have been repurposed from Canwest's various cable channels.

And then, there's the shrinking slate of news and other local programming. In the past month, the station lost two longtime fixtures, news anchors Connie Smith and Dan McLean. More than a dozen other positions have been axed as part of nationwide staff reductions by Canwest.

The cuts will see CHCH's local programming reduced to 37 hours per week from 41.5 hours. That's just a notch above the 36.5 hours required for the station'slicence.

So, what happened to Hamilton's TV superstation?

Some might see the story of CHCH as a maudlin tale - the decline and fall of a once-mighty local television entity. Others will simply view it all as a necessary transition in an era in which young viewers are ignoring traditional TV in favour of laptop computers or other technology that can access TV shows via DVDs or online video streaming.

In either case, the picture is far from CHCH's beginnings, when station founder Kenneth D. Soble had a vision of creating a TV giant that would call Hamilton its home.

Soble started out in radio, in his native Toronto, back in 1927 at the age of 16. In 1936, he moved to Hamilton to manage radio stationCHML, which he ended up buying in 1944. A few years later, he set his sights on the new medium of television.

Soble came up with a unique idea, a privately owned station that would be a CBC affiliate. He teamed with the Southam newspaper company, then owners of The Hamilton Spectator, and with local media mogul Clifford Sifton, whose company, Wentworth Broadcasting, then owned and operated radio station CKOC. The consortium, which would become known as Niagara Television, got its licence in March 1953 and set up shop inside the old Southam mansion at 163 Jackson St. W.

At 8 p.m. on June 7, 1954, "Lucky Channel 11" went on the air for the first
time.

CHCH remained a CBC affiliate until 1961, when Soble felt Hamilton was no longer well served by that arrangement. He pulled his station out of the network and, instead of jumping over to CTV, Soble surprised the industry by turning CHCH into the first independent English-language TV station in Canada.

Soble had already hired a former theatre manager named Sam Hebscher to buy movies for his station when it first went on the air. "He figured I bought movies for the theatres, so I could do the same for TV," Hebscher told The Spectator several years ago.

"We were known," Hebscher said, "as the most successful movie station in the world."

By the 1970s, long before Toronto's CITY-TV built a schedule around movies, and long before DVDs, video cassettes or pay TV brought theatrical flicks into homes, CHCH was famous for showcasing "world television premieres" of blockbusters such as The Ten Commandments and The Godfather, often beating American networks to the punch.

But CHCH was always about much more than movies. It was all about local programming.

To help fill his station's schedule, Soble fostered a huge breeding ground for local production. Out of that came numerous productions, such as Tiny Talent Time, Saturday Night Jamboree, Club 11 Dance Party, Cap'n Andy, Schnitzel House, Ein Prosit, Party Game, The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein, Don Messer's Jubilee, The Palace, Comedy At Club 54, Smith & Smith, Pasquale's Kitchen Express, Boogies Diner, Don Cherry's Grapevine, The Red Green Show ... the list goes on and on.

There were interview programs (The Pierre Berton Show), public-affairs programs (Under Attack), political debates (Full Circle), lifestyle-women's programs (The Jane Gray Show) and even late-night telephone call-in shows (Hotline). They were all key building blocks in CHCH's schedule.

So, too, was its news presence. The roster of talent boasted big names such as Tom Cherington, Norm Marshall, Jack Burghardt, Bill Lawrence, Harvey Kirck, Bill Knapp, R.O. Horning Jr., Geoff Scott and many others.

CHCH's commitment to local production got a big boost in the 1980s when the station expanded its Jackson Street facilities, replacing its old studios with a huge state-of-the-art production centre in time for its 30th anniversary.

CHCH was often ahead of the curve on technology fronts. Satellites were still in their infancy in the 1960s, but Soble had been working on a plan to use them to form a third national TV network. Those plans came to an abrupt end when a heart attack claimed Soble's life on Dec. 16, 1966.

Decades later, there are those who still argue that Soble's death delivered a blow from which CHCH never recovered.

Although the station did begin beaming its signal to cable systems across Canada via satellite in the early 1980s, CHCH never fully capitalized on it, in terms of advertising revenue, marketing strategies and plain old bragging.

Increased competition in the 1980s from CTV and the new Global TV network in Ontario saw CHCH waging, and often losing, bidding wars for American shows.

The station fought back in 1988, spending more than $50 million on an ill-fated two-year pact to hang onto national rights for a handful of hit American shows that included L.A. Law, ALF and Knots Landing. Plans to recoup costs by selling off regional rights to other stations across Canada faltered after a writers' strike in the U.S. put a halt to most big Hollywood productions that year. As well, CHCH's cross-country presence, via satellite, would beam the same shows into those other regions, thereby lessening their value to stations that were potential buyers.

Perhaps the most significant impact of Soble's death, however, was its effect on CHCH's ownership. The next 25 years would see the station change hands several times among major corporations until, in the early 1990s, CHCH finally
ended up in the stable of TV properties owned by a Vancouver company called WIC Western International Communications.

In 1997, having added over-the-air transmitters that extended CHCH's local
reach into Ottawa, London and parts of Northern Ontario, WIC then decided to rebrand the station as ONtv. It was a controversial move that significantly downplayed the station's Hamilton focus in favour of an Ontario-wide emphasis on news coverage and viewership.

Canwest purchased WIC and its stations in 2000 and restored ONtv's local focus. It also rebranded the station again in early 2001, this time simply as CH.

The move was actually the first step in setting up an entire CH "network" made up of Canwest's secondary stations across Canada. Those same stations were rechristened again as E! in 2007, after Canwest inked a deal for the American channel's brand.

The future is uncertain, particularly in light of the current economic downturn and less-than-stable advertising environment. Budget and staff cuts over the past few years have left CHCH's big production complex sitting mostly empty. Given the most recent cuts, that isn't likely to change.

Topping things off, both Global and E! are facing licence-renewal hearings
with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in April. Those hearings could certainly get feisty.

In a conference call with financial analysts in November, Canwest Global CEO Leonard Asper said his company will renew a request, turned down by the CRTC in October, to charge cable and satellite companies and their subscribers a fee for its local TV signals.

Asper also said that Canwest would lobby for a reduction in local-programming requirements that his stations "really can no longer afford."

The CRTC may well have a different view at the April hearings.

"Holding a licence to operate a conventional television station comes with certain responsibilities and obligations," CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said last June, "one of which is to provide viewers with a significant amount of local news."

Half a century ago, Ken Soble ran his station with that sensibility.

HBO Canada - Oct. 25, 2008

ON SCREEN:
HBO CANADA
STARTING OCT. 30

BOTTOM LINE:
IT'S NOT TV. IT'S HBO.
AT LEAST, THAT'S WHAT
THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.

Channel flipping

Pay TV subscribers have always
longed to have HBO in Canada.
Now, they weill finally be able to get it.
Well, sort of.


By Eric Kohanik

There was a time when only a handful of pay/cable channels populated the TV landscape. 

Now, there are so many that, whenever another one launches, it’s usually greeted with a ho-hum shrug by those who cover television.

Except for this week. That’s because HBO is finally arriving in Canada. 

Well, sort of. 

Canadian pay TV subscribers have always longed for HBO. That longing is what has fuelled much of Canada’s pay TV industry.

Over the years, it also helped nurture an entire industry of black-market and grey-market satellite dishes across the country. 

Starting Oct. 30, though, Canadians willbe able to get HBO legally. 

Well, sort of.

See, it’s not really HBO. It’s a Canadian adaptation – a couple of existing channels masquerading as the famed American icon.

Pay TV in Canada started a quarter of a century ago, following a formula similar to HBO in the U.S. There were three national English pay TV channels in Canada then: First Choice, Superchannel and C-Channel.

The first two were competing movie channels; the third was a “culture” channel that had programs with a high-class appeal. 

C-Channel didn’t last long. And the two remaining services found their only hope for survival would be to split the Canadian TV market right along the Manitoba-Ontario border, with First Choice taking the east and Superchannel saddling up in the west. 

Still, HBO was nowhere to be seen in Canada. At least, not legally. The two Canadian pay channels eventually took on new names: First Choice became The Movie Network (or TMN), while Superchannel rebranded itself as Movie Central.

Canada’s pay-TV scene recently got a newplayer – a national network called, wait for it, Super Channel. But, hey, that’s a wholeother story we’ll save for some other time. 

Multiplex and video-on-demand technology have broadened the reach of both TMN and Movie Central over the years. Both of them even cut deals long ago for the rights to show most HBO programming in Canada. 

But Canadian TV fans continued to long for HBO itself – to the point where the CRTC had actually considered opening Canada’s protectionist doors to let the American channel in. 

In a crafty countermeasure, though, the parent companies of TMN and Movie Central took pages from Canwest Global’s deal for E! and CTV’s partnership with MTV. They teamed up to snag rights to the HBO brand and are now rechristening two of their existing multiplex channels (MMOR in the east and MC4 in the west) as HBO Canada.

So, technically, Canadian viewers will have HBO available to them this week – even though it’s really a Canadian version that will have to air homegrown programs as well.

But at least Canadian TV viewers can now finally stop longing for America’s beloved HBO.

Well, sort of.

TV Variety Shows - Oct. 18, 2008

ON SCREEN:
THE RETURN OF PRIMETIME VARIETY SHOWS
COMING SOON

BOTTOM LINE:
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN.


On with the show

They say that variety is the spice of life.
Now, some networks are hoping that variety
can spice up an otherwise bland TV season.


By Eric Kohanik

There was once a time when the primetime variety show was a big mainstay in the TV world.

It was a holdover from the days of vaudeville houses and the early years of network radio.

Every TV network tended to have at least one primetime variety show to spice up its scheDule. There were classics like Your Show of Shows and The Milton Berle Show, better known as The Texaco Star Theater. And there was Toast of the Town, which was later much more widely known by its new title: The Ed Sullivan Show.

There were many others over the years: The Dean Martin Show, This Is Tom Jones, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, The Hollywood Palace…the list goes on and on.

The last of the big network variety shows? That was probably The Carol Burnett Show, which actually finished its run 30 years ago.

These days, TV variety shows tend to take the form of talent competitions – shows like Dancing With the Stars or America’s Got Talent. Or they are sketch-comedy shows that have found a niche during latenight hours – shows like Saturday Night Live.

But the bigtime network variety show may be in for a primetime comeback before long. In July, Fox announced plans to roll out a traditional TV variety show with a rather untraditional twist.

The network recruited Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne and two of their dizzy offspring, Jack and Kelly, for a new show tentatively titled The Osbournes: Loud and Dangerous. Set to debut during the holiday season, it is supposed to mix music performances with comedy sketches and what Fox describes as “game-show competitions.”

Fox signed up for six episodes of the Osbourne project. Whether there will be more after that will depend on how audiences take to the first batch of shows.

Over at NBC, meanwhile, network executives announced a couple of weeks ago that they had signed Rosie O’Donnell to host Rosie’s Variety Special, a primetime effort that is scheduled to hit the air Nov. 26. The live, hourlong special is supposed to feature musical acts, comedy skits, celebrity guests and what NBC is billing as “a giant primetime give-away.” If the special proves to be popular, NBC plans to turn it into a regular weekly show in 2009.

Can O’Donnell and the Osbournes turn variety shows back into the TV mainstays they once were? Hey, you never know. After all, who’d have thought that quiz shows and amateur talent competitions – both powerhouse genres during TV’s early years, too – would make the big comebacks they have?

One thing is certain. Networks are always looking for new ideas that can become hits. And, in the TV world, you know that, at some point, everything old is new again.

Fall Preview 2008 - Sept. 6, 2008

ON SCREEN:
THE NEW FALL TV SEASON

BOTTOM LINE:
THEY MUST BE SAVING THE BEST STUFF FOR MIDSEASON.

Channel hopping

The writers' strike derailed TV networks last season. This fall is all about getting things back on track and viewers back on board.


By Eric Kohanik

Last season’s writers’ strike really did knock the stuffing out of the TV industry, in a lot of ways.

That is about to become obvious as a new TV season gets rolling.

For some networks, the 2008 fall season will be a lot about relaunching shows that actually premiered in the 2007 fall season. Chief among them are series that never did return with new episodes after the strike.

So, count on big relaunches for series like Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money (all returning Oct. 1; ABC, A).

Then, there were the midseason shows that arrived during or after the writers’ strike. Although many of those were marginal ratings performers, network executives figured some were worth hanging onto. So, there will be lots of drum beating going on to stir up renewed interest in shows like Lipstick Jungle (returning Sept. 24; NBC, Citytv) and Eli Stone (returning Oct. 14; ABC, A).

For some TV series, meanwhile, the new fall season will be all about saying goodbye. So, look for the launch of the farewell seasons of such TV veterans as The Shield (returning Sept. 9; Showcase), Boston Legal (returning Sept. 22; ABC, E!), ER (returning Sept. 25; NBC, CTV) and, yes, even Royal Canadian Air Farce (returning Oct. 3; CBC).

But what about any fantastic new shows?

Uh, don’t count on a bumper crop of those this fall. Maybe networks are just waiting to harvest their best new stuff midseason.

That may work out in the end, since viewers often complain that they don’t really have time to add many new shows to their stable of favourites in the fall.

If you do have room for only one new drama in your fall TV viewing planner, try Simon Baker’s stint as The Mentalist (premiering Sept. 22; A and Sept. 23; CBS). It’s a good show that casts Baker as a former TV psychic who helps police solve crimes.

If you’re craving a clever new comedy, try Kyle Bornheimer‘s travails in Worst Week (premiering Sept. 22; CBS, E!). You just can’t help but like a show where the main character keeps having worse luck than you do.

And if you are simply missing the competitive juices of So You Think You Can Dance, there’s a whole gaggle of Canadians hot to (fox) trot on the new So You Think You Can Dance Canada (starting Sept. 11; CTV).

Of course, if you subscribe to pay TV, you’re really in luck. As well as great returning shows, pay TV is where the good stuff is really showing up this fall.

Vampire fans will adore HBO’s True Blood (premiering Sept. 7; The Movie Network, Movie Central). And, when it comes to sketch comedy, there’s nothing funnier than oddballs Matt Lucas and David Walliams re-inventing their wacky material for the new Little Britain USA (premiering Sept. 29; The Movie Network, Movie Central).

So, there you have it – the bottom line on the new season. Happy channel hopping!

The Canadian Network Upfronts - June 2, 2007

ON SCREEN:
THE CANADIAN NETWORK UPFRONTS
THE FIRST WEEK OF JUNE IN TORONTO

BOTTOM LINE:
SIGN HERE.


Talking the talk

Ah, June! It's that time of year when Canada's
TV networks love to forget past blunders
and invite advertisers to bank on the future.


By Eric Kohanik

There’s nothing like the sweet smell of the first week of June in the Canadian TV business. 

It’s that time of year when Canadian TV networks like to forget what sort of screw-ups they were last season and, instead, focus everyone’s attention on how brilliant they’re going to be in the TV season that lies ahead.

American networks have already done that. They spent the middle of May assembling and announcing their new fall schedules. They trotted out their lineups and stars for advertisers and the media at their splashy “Upfront” presentations in New York City.

This week, it will be the Canadian networks taking their turn in Toronto.

Some have already jumped the gun. Convinced that it absolutely has to be the first kid on the block to break the news every year, CBC showed off its fall programming plans – such as they are – last Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, network executives from CTV, Global, CHUM Television and other Canadian TV outlets were still recovering from having spent the previous week-and-a-half in Los Angeles at the L.A. Screenings. That’s the annual feeding frenzy that has program buyers from around the world wheeling and dealing to buy American TV shows.

This practice is particularly important for most Canadian TV channels because they would much rather rake in huge profits by buying and airing new American shows than flush their money away on developing new Canadian ones. It’s a shame, really.

Anyway, Canadian networks pay only a fraction of what NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and The CW dish out on licence fees for the same shows. Still, big American shows cost big American dollars. But that’s OK, because those big American shows haul in even bigger Canadian advertising bucks. And so, the final days of the L.A. Screenings are a tense and hectic exercise for Canadian TV execs as they jockey to assemble the best lineup of American shows possible. 

This week, Canadian broadcasters will show off the results of their L.A. spending sprees at big presentations meant to convince ad buyers that their money would really be much better spent with one particular network rather than any of the others.

Never mind that the past season was disastrous in so many ways. Or that most of last year’s new shows failed. It’s time to start all over again. The future is all that matters. 

Oh, and sign right here.

The chief rivals in these dog-and-pony shows are CTV (which does its big thing Monday) and Global (which follows suit Wednesday). They’ll each put the best spin they can on what they’ve got for next season. They’ll ply advertisers with food, booze, door prizes and, in some cases, even money.

It’s all part of talking the talk. And part of that sweet smell that fills the Canadian TV business every June.

Hidden Palms - May 26, 2007

ON SCREEN:
HIDDEN PALMS
PREMIERING WEDNESDAY; THE CW, CITYTV

BOTTOM LINE:
A DARK, INTRIGUING MYSTERY.


Still a peach of a pair

Gail O'Grady and Sharon Lawrence were
memorable on NYPD Blue. Now, they're back
together in the mysterious confines of Hidden Palms.


By Eric Kohanik

There’s a great little TV reunion that takes place on the screen in Hidden Palms, a kitschy new mystery-drama series that makes its way to the tube this week.

It’s a reunion that involves two of my favourite actresses: Gail O’Grady and Sharon Lawrence. 

The two co-stars actually worked together “60 years ago,” O’Grady quips, during the early years of NYPD Blue. That series featured Lawrence as Sylvia Costas, a tough prosecutor who clashed with – and later fell for – world-weary police detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz). 

O’Grady, meanwhile, attracted plenty of attention for her role as Donna Abandando, the buxom, poofy-haired precinct receptionist during the show’s first few seasons. 

The actresses have followed different career paths since those days. O’Grady spent three seasons as wife and mother Helen Pryor on a nostalgic drama called American Dreams. She followed that with a rather short-lived run in an unsuccessful real-estate-office sitcom called Hot Properties. 

In between, O’Grady has chalked up anumber of memorable guest stints, including a two-episode turn on Two and a Half Men last season and a recurring run this season as Gloria Weldon, the super-hot judge who has a tough time keeping her hands, or other body parts, away from lawyer Alan Shore (James Spader) on Boston Legal.

As for Lawrence, her career journey has included TV movies and series appearances, too. Among them was a onetime guest shot on Boston Legal and a recurring turn on Desperate Housewives as Maisy Gibbons, the randy suburbanite whose sordid encounters with Rex Van De Camp (Steven Culp) ended up putting him in the hospital.

Hidden Palms is a dark, mystery-filled drama fuelled by suicide, scandal and murder. The brainchild of Dawson’s Creek producer Kevin Williamson, it focuses lots of energy on contrasting the idyllic resort lifestyle of Palm Springs, Calif., with dark secrets that lurk beneath its facade.

There are also plenty of nubile young bodies romping around all over the screen.

O’Grady and Lawrence play two very different mothers of teenaged boys wrapped up in the mystery. Unlike NYPD Blue, in which they rarely had scenes together, Hidden Palms gives the two seasoned actresses plenty of opportunities to interact onscreen. 

“On this show, we’re actually good pals,” Lawrence says. “I get to wear the big hair and she’s the one who looks as if she has a bit more reasonable sense in her brain.” 

O’Grady, meanwhile, was simply happy about “working with another actor that you respect.” It was an added plus, she says, to work with “an old buddy” as well.

“To have an opportunity to get onto the same cast for another show?” O’Grady says. “We were thrilled.”

NBC Movie Of The Week - May 12, 2007

ON SCREEN:
NBC MOVIE OF THE WEEK
SUNDAYS; NBC

BOTTOM LINE:
POPCORN, ANYONE?


Everything old is new again

It's not surprising to see NBC bring
movies back to Sunday nights.
In the TV world, everything that
goes around comes around.


By Eric Kohanik

There was a time when Sunday nights were huge movie nights for all TV networks.

Those were the days when ABC, CBS and NBC ruled the roost on the American TV scene. They were the days when the “world television premiere” of a theatrical movie was a really big deal for a broadcaster – the days before cable channels, pay-per-view, video on demand, DVDs, cellphones and the Internet came along to milk every last drop out of any flick around.

During the mid-1980s, all three of the big American networks had movies on their Sunday-night schedules. The practice began to change with the arrival of the Fox network. In 1987, Fox turned Sunday – its only evening of primetime programming at the time – into a showcase for TV series.

The success of that move gradually prompted other networks to slot series into Sunday nights. NBC steadfastly resisted the change, however, even as ratings for movies continued to spiral downward.

In fact, during a casual conversation on a TV press tour in Los Angeles back in the mid-1990s, I asked a top NBC executive at the time why the network didn’t try airing series instead of movies on Sundays.

The guy laughed in my face. Series just don’t work on Sunday nights, he said. 

Of course, it’s a much different Sunday night on the tube these days. NBC finally relented in the fall of 2001, becoming the last big American network to drop the Sunday movie tradition. 

In the TV world, though, everything that goes around comes around. And programming trends always swing back and forth, particularly if a network is struggling.

So, it’s not surprising to see NBC making the switch to big Sunday-night movies again. Along Came Polly got the ball rolling a couple of weeks ago. Shrek jumps into the berth this weekend. And Nicolas Cage’s escapades in National Treasure will fill NBC’s movie slot next Sunday. 

The decision comes from Vince Manze, an old-school NBC veteran recently named to a newly created position of “president of program planning, scheduling and strategy.” 

Sunday is “the place where we used to do events and miniseries,” Manze explained to The Hollywood Reporter recently. According to Manze, putting movies back onto Sunday nights “accomplishes two things: building events and serving as counter-programming to what the others are doing.” 

Manze claims that NBC doesn’t have big ratings expectations for its Sunday-night flicks, particularly since they’re up against such shows as Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters on ABC and Cold Case and Without a Trace on CBS.

If NBC’s strategy proves successful, who knows? Others may follow suit. And that old programming pendulum may just swing back the other way yet again.

The Riches - May 5, 2007

ON SCREEN:
THE RICHES
PREMIERING WEDNESDAY; SHOWCASE (CANADA)

BOTTOM LINE:
DRAMATIC, DARK AND DELICIOUS


American dreamers

The Riches is a dark drama series
about a family of con artists.
You just never know what's going on
with the folks next door.


By Eric Kohanik

Some call them “gypsies.” Others refer to them as “tinkers” or “travellers.”

Most of us would simply know them as con artists.

Meet Wayne and Dahlia Malloy. They’re an average-looking American couple (played by British actors Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver) with three wholesome-looking American kids. The Malloys are making their way across the countryside in a mobile home. But things aren’t always as they seem.

Actually, in the case of the Malloys, things are never as they seem. So, when Wayne shows up at a high-school reunion in the opening scene of The Riches, you soon realize he is up to no good.

The Riches is a difficult series to sum up. Just know that it’s dramatic. It’s dark. It’s deliciously good. And you should watch it.

As the opening episode progresses, there are some twists of fate that befall the Malloys. For starters, Dahlia has been in the slammer and is just getting out. She also has a nasty little crack habit, which doesn’t help. 

After a violent run-in on the road with members of Dahlia’s extended family, the Malloys narrowly escape a car crash with a couple named Doug and Cherie Rich – who, as it turns out, are moving to a new house they’ve bought in Louisiana. 

The Riches never make it because they die in the crash. So, the Malloys do what they do best. They rob the bodies of their belongings. They assume Doug and Cherie’s identities. And they try to escape their past and pursue a new American dream.

The Riches is the creative brainchild of Dmitry Lipkin, a Russian-born playwright who first pitched his idea a few years ago.

“I wanted to write a show about a family who pretends to be someone they’re not,” Lipkin recalled during a press conference in Los Angeles. “I always felt that’s sort of what I was doing in my own life.” 

Immigrating to the United States when he was 10, Lipkin’s family settled in Louisiana. His upbringing in the swampy South made him want to “capture that oddness and that kind of outside perspective on America.”

According to Lipkin, there are 20,000 to 30,000 known “travellers” in the U.S. Their existence intrigues him.

“It’s just a fascinating idea,” he says. “In a time where everybody’s ‘on the grid,’ these guys are off the grid completely.” 

The opening episode of The Riches does a good job of exploring the subculture of “travellers” and their sense of morality, while future episodes delve into the culture clash that arises between the Malloys – er, make that the Riches – and their unsuspecting neighbours.

“We know this exists,” Izzard says. “For year after year, you can be next door to someone, and you don’t know what’s going on with them.

“So, check your next-door neighbours.”

DVDs, DVRs and TV Viewership - April 21, 2007

ON SCREEN:
KIDNAPPED
AVAILABLE TUESDAY ON DVD

BOTTOM LINE:
WHY BOTHER WASTING TIME WITH NEW TV SHOWS?


Strategic viewing

So, a TV network is cancelling new shows that look intriguing?
No sweat! Thanks to DVDs and DVRs, there are a number of ways around that problem.


By Eric Kohanik

The coming week’s roster of DVD releases has an interesting collection of TV series in the mix.

Sure, there are the usual, memorable classics. Fox Home Entertainment looked back to 1978 to unearth the first season of WKRP in Cincinnati as a three-disc package. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, meanwhile, reached back to 1975 to deliver the first season of One Day at a Time as a two-disc set.

Paramount Home Video went all the way to 1970 to put the first season of The Odd Couple onto five discs. On the other hand, Warner Home Video only went back to 1995 to come up with the first season of The Drew Carey Show as a four-disc collection.

What truly caught my eye, though, is Sony’s release of a three-disc rendition of a series from the current TV season: Kidnapped.

A drama that starred Jeremy Sisto, Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany, Kidnapped premiered Sept. 20 on NBC and Global, aiming to unfold its fictional conflict – the abduction of a teenaged son of a wealthy New York family – over the course of an entire season.

Trouble is, the show didn’t last long enough to finish its story on the air.

It’s such a shame. Every year, network executives keep promising to show patience for new shows when it comes to letting them find their audiences. Then, when the shows don’t take off right away, they get yanked.

It’s odd, too. By the time a series makes it to the air, it has been extensively “tested.” Scripts have been read by dozens of individuals. Cast members have been paraded in front of both studio and network brass for approval. And the finished show has been screened by studios, networks and focus groups that give lots and lots of feedback.

With all that input, it’s astounding that so many new shows still bite the dust so fast. It’s the loyal viewers who always get the short end of the stick, of course. And it’s frustrating for them. So, it’s no surprise that some are coming up with clever solutions.

A co-worker and another acquaintance recently revealed to me, quite coincidentally, that they have developed similar viewing strategies. Rather than watch a new series when it airs, they record all the episodes of the show on a VCR or DVR and then just leave them there, unwatched, until they are certain the show won’t be cancelled.

If the series sticks around, they sit down for marathon viewing sessions of the recorded shows until they’re all caught up. If the show does get whacked, they simply erase the episodes, content that they haven’t wasted hours of their lives for nothing.

TV executives always bemoan the decline in traditional TV viewership, but many are actually fuelling that fire. The more quickly they cancel new shows, the more they convince viewers not to bother watching new shows.

After all, those viewers can just record them and wait. Or just wait for the DVDs.

Hockey Night In Canada - April 14, 2007

ON SCREEN:
HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA
PICK A NIGHT; CBC

BOTTOM LINE:
THE TRADITION CONTINUES.


Let's make a deal

The NHL has a nasty habit of grovelling to
American networks while sticking it to
Canadian ones. It’s all part of the
power play of hockey on TV.


By Eric Kohanik

Hey, it’s mid-April! And, in theTV universe – the Canadian TV universe, that is – it means the annual ritual of Stanley Cup hockey playoffs has begun.

It’s a nightly ritual at first. Then, it eases up. Still, the ritual will stretch from now until mid-June, when sane people’s thoughts are focused on anything but a midwinter sport.

Over the course of the next two months, National Hockey League playoffs will throw CBC’s topsy-turvy program schedule into even greater disarray than usual. But this is actually a good thing.

There had been widespread fear in the halls of the taxpayers’ network that it might all change after next season. Having already lost curling and Canadian football (starting in 2008) and the 2010 and 2012 Olympics to CTV, the folks at CBC were nervous. In fact, there had been industry-wide speculation for months that CTV was determined to snag the rights to Hockey Night in Canada – no matter the cost.

So, it was with a huge sigh of relief that CBC’s top brass announced late last month that they had hammered out a six-year agreement with the NHL to keep HNIC in its stable right on through to the end of the 2013-14 season.

CBC didn’t disclose the money involved, but industry analysts have pegged the price at around $85 million per year, up considerably from the $60-million annual levy CBC is reportedly paying now.

“For the record, this was a good deal for the NHL,” league commissioner Gary Bettman crowed at a Toronto press conference as the agreement was announced.

It’s a pretty greedy deal for the NHL, too – especially when you consider how the league grovels, hat in hand, whenever it negotiates with big American TV networks. Shortly after the CBC announcement was made, NBC – which has national network TV rights to NHL games in the United States – announced it also had a deal with the league.

The peacock network’s agreement is simply a one-year extension of its current pact, which gives it the rights to a weekly game as well as the Stanley Cup finals.

For this, NBC pays nothing up front. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Instead, the network simply tosses the NHL a chunk of the advertising money it gets from its game telecasts.

That’s a lousy deal for the NHL. But then, what do you expect? This is a league with a propensity for whoring itself whenever it comes to chasing the elusive American audience while sticking it to Canadian fans and Canadian TV networks.

Don’t feel sorry for the CBC, though. The only reason any TV network spends big money to get something is because there’s even bigger money to be made by having it.

After all, “the CBC” just wouldn’t be “the CBC” without NHL hockey on its airwaves for nine months of the year.