Comedy, reality shows loom large in CBC-TV’s fall schedule
Comedy, reality TV and current affairs are the staples of CBC-TV’s fall prime-time schedule.
A comedy series based on the successful 2002 Canadian film Men With Brooms, featuring the movie’s writer, director and star Paul Gross, and All for One, a reality TV series celebrating the nation’s unsung heroes, hosted by Debbie Travis, are the new additions to the public network’s roster, unveiled Thursday.
CBC-TV will also launch a second season of the hit figure-skating reality show Battle of the Blades, and will continue producing the comedy programs The Rick Mercer Report, Just for Laughs, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Ron James Show, Kirstine Stewart, general manager of CBC Television, announced at CBC’s downtown Toronto headquarters.
Other series returning to the network’s fall schedule include the homegrown dramas Being Erica and Heartland, the business reality show Dragons’ Den and the popular British historical drama The Tudors.
On the news and current affairs side, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki returns for its 50th season, as do the pop culture magazine/chat show The Hour, with George Stroumboulopoulos, and the long-running investigative series the fifth estate.
“We’re building on our strengths but not standing still, adding a couple of new shows that have the potential to be audience winners, and revamping and tweaking other programs to give them a fresh look,” Stewart told the Toronto Star after a splashy media presentation featuring most of the network’s top on-air personalities.
She described Travis’s show, a complete departure for the British-born Canadian home design maven, as “a social experiment that expands on the reality TV format to help people who are known for helping others in small communities across Canada.”
It premieres Sept. 26.
Men with Brooms, produced by Toronto-based Serendipity Point Films’ Robert Lantos, will be shot in Winnipeg this summer with a cast that includes Brendan Gall, William Vaughan, Joel Keller, Anand Rajaram, Aliyah O’Brien and Siobhan Murphy.
Gross, who wrote, directed and starred in the feature film and is the series’ executive producer, voices an overdubbed narrative and appears occasionally as curling legend Chris Cutter, the part he played in the movie.
“We’re always looking at English-language Canadian films, and there aren’t many of them, that have the potential to be spun into a series,” Stewart said. “Men with Brooms was a no-brainer.”
The series begins Sept. 20.
The only made-for-TV movie on CBC’s fall agenda is the Christmas epic The Nativity, a co-production with BBC Television, currently shooting in Morocco.
“It’s getting harder to make movies for television that get enough attention to justify their cost,” added Stewart, who has seen CBC-TV’s audience grow to a 9.8 share in 2009 from 6.7 in 2006-2007, her first year as general manager.
“We have to cut expenses by reducing the number of episodes ordered for most series - to 11 from 13, and to 18 from 20.”
A one-off special, Making a Scene, airing Sept. 23 and featuring the voice of William Shatner, celebrates 30 years of Canadian filmmaking with candid interviews with homegrown stars, producer and directors, including Christopher Plummer, Bruce Greenwood, Colm Feore, Atom Egoyan, Gordon Pinsent and Norman Jewison, among others.
On CBC-TV’s daytime roster Best Recipes Ever returns for a second season Sept. 13, and the lifestyle show Steven and Chris is back for a fourth season.
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