At 9 PM tonight, Canadians will have a choice to make. The Canadian debate will be airing on CTV and the American Vice Presidential debate will be airing on CNN live at the exact same time! Get ready to debate the debate folks!

In this corner, on CTV, we have Canadian Politics! With a tag team   consisting of The Francophone, the Current Prime Minister, The NDP Guy, The OTHER Francophone, and the Woman Who Cares about the Environment! They will face off about everything from the economy to carbon tax to why the heck nobody wants to help Toronto out ever.

They will be going up against American Politics on CNN featuring Sarah “I Can See Russia From My House” Palin and Joe “Talks Before He Thinks” Biden! They will be discussing the economy, moose hunting, and the relationship between lipstick, pigs, and pit bulls.

What will Canadians do? On one hand, we should watch our own debates. On the other hand, it is likely that one or both of the Americans will say something really stupid, and who wants to miss that? We will have to wait for the ratings to find out what Canada decides. What will you be doing on Debate Night in Canada?

With the pilot episode shot in Toronto and approximately $10 million dollars invested on the pilot alone, Fox’s ‘Fringe’ has the financial backing for it to be television’s next big hit.  Fox and JJ Abrams look to take advantage of what most critics are calling a soft Fall season for new shows premiering this Fall.

The pilot was never released by Fox/JJ Abrams with fear that it would leak onto the web.  However, we got the opportunity to view the pilot here at PHD.  The pilot was suspenseful and kept you entertained, if I could explain it to those whom have not seen the pilot, I would describe ‘Fringe’ as “X-Files meets Lost”.  I think J.J Abrams and the folks at Fox only hope Fringe can become half the cult hit that X-Files was…

Only time will tell.

Here are 2 articles/perspectives from today’s Toronto Sun and Toronto Star…. 

From left, John Noble, Anna Torv, Jasika Nicole and Vancouver expat Joshua Jackson are on the trail of a biological terrorist threat in Fox drama Fringe.

Leaked on the Internet and popular with critics, Fox drama could be next cult phenomenon

See the entire Toronto Star  article at http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Television/article/460219

See the Toronto Sun article at:

http://www.torontosun.com/Entertainment/Television/2008/07/15/6160466-sun.html

Gino Di Giulio

Phd

In the spirit of sharing some stunning creative for one of our clients (and to give myself a kick-start into our blogging world here!), please have a look at this British television ad for Honda/Acura. For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, prepare to be dazzled! The description accompanying this video reads as follows:

If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven’t seen anything yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it. The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn’t work.

It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to achieve this effect. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives.

However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet. Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (as Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it). When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.

There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording. Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles.

The voice is that of Garrison Keiller.

The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation.

By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.

Enjoy!!

You know that better as the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada, played for more than 40 years on CBC.

Well not any more.

Thanks to CTV, TSN and RDS, that great tune will resonate in our ears in a slightly different manner for years to come…they purchased the rights

in perpetuity…

That means forever folks!

There is no doubt of the power of this theme song.  I have personally used it to connect with a Canadian who had it as a ring tone on his cell while walking the streets of London England.  And the controversy it has stirred has taken over gas prices for a day or two as the top story in the Canadian press.  Letters have been sent, petitions signed and Facebook pages set up all over the place to support our second national anthem.

As a hockey fan, I am disappointed by CBC’s decision but happy CTV have kept it alive.  As a tax-payer, I applaud CBC’s fiscal responsibility.  As a media guy, I don’t know yet what to make of it as the shock has yet to wear off.

I would love to hear some more opinions…

Each year the television season is kicked off with the US upfronts in New York City. Canadian agencies and broadcasters send representatives to attend the US Networks presentations. I was lucky enough to represent PHD.

The presentations were scaled down this year – not as much hype as the previous years. However we all still managed to enjoy the week and come back with some advance knowledge of what to expect this fall.

The effects of the writer’s strike were evident, there were less new series ready to launch - 17 were introduced for the fall versus 24 from last year.

• NBC had twelve new offerings, four ready to go. Among them was Knight Rider, a spin-off from the original series. The pilot was the made-for-TV movie that aired this spring. The better than anticipated audience delivery for the movie made it an obvious pick for a new series. An agreement was made prior to the US upfront by CanWest to pick up NBC’s new properties.
• ABC showed us a list of 17 new titles that are in development, but only two are ready for the fall.
• CW also had a handful of shows ready, including a 90210 spin-off, which generated a lot of excitement during the presentation. A recent announcement of guest appearances by Jenny Garth and Tory Spelling is sure to hold up interest from the older set as well as attract the younger audiences that will discover the franchise for the first time. (Already picked up by Canwest in Canada).
• CBS has five new fall shows in the queue, and the exciting part of the presentation – they actually had some clips of shows in progress for mid season (A given in previous years). Introduced for fall are two new comedies – Worst Week and Project Gary. Worst Week being my favorite. It’s about an editor who will do anything to please his girlfriend’s parents, often ending up in compromised situations. Based on a successful UK series.
• Fox introduced two new fall shows and five for the mid season. The network also announced ‘Remote Free TV”. Fringe and Dollhouse, two of their new sci-fi dramas will air with only five commercial minutes in each episode. Shorter pod breaks and less commercial clutter. The network hopes that advertisers will embrace this new business model. I can only assume, to make this venture affordable, there will be a premium to run in these properties with sponsorship and product placement a plenty. Will Canadian broadcasters pick them up and if so will they choose to air them in the same format?

Clearly, the bigger season for new programming will be spring ‘09. Writers will have had more time for plot and character development. Hopefully we’ll see less cancelled shows and greater continuity with existing programming.

Stay tuned!

Alex Trebek, Fred Forster, David Suzuki, Rick Mercer, George Stroumboulopoulos and the Stanley Cup…

‘Who were some of the Canadian stars rolled out at CBC’s 2008 Fall Upfront?’

You are correct!

This past Monday,  CBC hosted it’s annual up-front presentation in the ‘Corporation’s’ Atrium on Front Street.  Before herding the media folk in a giant freight elevator up to the 10th floor, they took us through their upcoming Fall season.

The new CBC schedule is full of returnees that were launched in the past couple years, which is a good sign of success for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp…the list includes The Border, Sophie, Little Mosque on The Prairie, Heartland, The Tudors, Dragon’s Den, Test The Nation, Hockey Night in Canada and the daytime hit-show Steven & Chris.

Besides these returnees, the CBC line-up also features a number of long-established shows…The Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, The Fifth Estate, the final season of Royal Air Farce Live and we must not forget The Hour with George "Let’s sit and chat" Stroumboulopoulos…say that last name 10 times real fast!

CBC also announced a couple of new mini-series: Everest, shot in the Rockies, starring Jason Priestley (Beverly Hills 90210) and William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal).  Everest tells the story of the first Canadians to reach the highest point of the earth in 1982.  Celine, is a biopic about Celine Dion and her humble beginnings in Quebec through to her climb to international stardom.

After beginning his broadcasting career with CBC back in the late 1950’s, Alex Trebek, a native of Sudbury Ontario is back with his hit show Jeopardy!  CBC will be running Jeopardy! in the same time slot it held on CTV.  Another acquisition is Wheel of Fortune which will air weekdays at 5:30pm…Unfortunately, there were no Vanna White sightings.

It was also announced that the CBC is coming off a year in which they beat out CanWest Global’s ratings this winter for the first time since 1995.  We think the Writer’s Strike may have had a little hand in that event.

Once on the 10th Floor, guests had a chance to peruse the different mock studio sets and have their pictures taken with the likes of Trebek, Sofia Milos (The Border, CSI Miami), Stroumboulopoulos, Mercer and Suzuki to name a few.  Interestingly, one of the longest lineups was for a photo op with George Stroumboulopoulos, it wasn’t so much his popularity, as George took a few minutes to sit and get to know each person he took a picture with.  The Grilled Cheese station seemed to be the most popular of the food kiosks as was the Orange Creme Brulee that was trotted around throughout the night. 

There was however an extremely long wait and a very large, anxious crowd searching for their coveted developed pictures with the stars.  Overall, one of the more intriguing CBC Upfront’s I’ve attended in quite some time.

‘I’ll take PHD Canada for $1,000 Alex!’

Now onto the next Fall upfront…

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Gossip Girl’? Really? Well, whether or not you’re a fan of the show, ‘Gossip Girl’ might just be at the forefront of the changing TV model – a model involving everything but a television.

‘Gossip Girl’ launched in September 2007 with mediocre ratings compared to those of teen dramas past. New episodes averaged just 526,000 viewers in Canada during the fall of 2007, and 2.5 million viewers in the U.S.

What was different then about ‘Gossip Girl’ - were people not as interested? It turns out they were indeed watching, just not as much on TV. ‘Gossip Girl’ was the number one streamed show on CTV.ca during the fall of 2007 and quickly rose to the top of iTunes’ most downloaded list. The show was tapping into a younger, tech savvy audience who didn’t need to make sure they were planted in front of the television at a certain hour – they were in control of when and where they watched the show.

In this month’s issue of New York Magazine, they speak about ‘Gossip Girl’ as changing the way in which we watch television. They describe the show as one, “…that may foretell a future of multiplatform entertainment whose success is determined not by traditional ratings but by what Schwartz and co–executive producer Stephanie Savage call “cultural permeation”.

Fans of the show can posts blogs online and speculate about characters and storylines. They can find out where to purchase the clothing or accessories seen in the show. There is even a ‘Gossip Girl’ component in Second Life. The show lives online and so do its viewers.

‘Gossip Girl’ is by no means the first TV program to experience online success. What separates this show from others, however, is its younger audience who already have the tools necessary to easily interact in an online environment. ‘Gossip Girl’ can capitalize on their viewers’ “tech knowledge”, enabling the program and the brand to expand quicker online than a show aimed at an older generation. 

‘Gossip Girl’ has started a conversation with its audience and the viewer doesn’t even need to turn on the television. The challenge to advertisers now is that the viewer is getting more out of this conversation than they did before and may refuse to settle for anything less. If viewers continue to interact with TV programming in this way, does the future of the TV model even include the TV?

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