Canwest might have transformed into the kind of lumbering corporate behemoth that inspires people to write books like Asper Nation: Canada’s Most Dangerous Media Company. But owning a chunk of every communications platform ensures at least one thing — press assigned to cover the annual upfront presentation to television advertisers are accommodated like no other corporation can, or will.
Since showbiz news has become the most prominent original currency on their conventional stations — Entertainment Tonight Canada fulfills a prime-time quota on the Global network, while sleepier local stations like CHCH in Hamilton were stamped last year with the excitable imprimatur E! — Canwest make their presentation feel like the hottest ticket in town, invading the stage of the Elgin Theatre at 9am to intoxicate 1,500 marketing types before their workday starts.
Reporters are herded into the plush basement of the vintage theatre, as if covering an awards ceremony, where the winners are the content providers.
That is, not to be confused with a deluge of celebrities, since television continues to run increasingly low on developing those. Global’s got a few of them in the lineup that typically plucks from American networks — and are co-producing a reality show with NBC that consists of homeboy Howie Mandel pulling pranks.
Also on the sked is The Animated Adventures of Bob and Doug McKenzie, some 30 years after a struggling Global Television Network dropped the ball on SCTV.
But the real stars at this event are a bushel of logos, including those specialty-channel ones snapped up by Canwest last year in their purchase of Alliance Atlantis. Not that the enduring examples of graphic design are the result of local ingenuity — the fonts for BBC, IFC and National Geographic Channel were obviously concocted elsewhere — but the idea of making them more than peripheral identifier was the apparent objective of company forefather Izzy Asper.
Not only were the titles of each imported show appended with the words “ON GLOBAL,” but digital trickery let them make it look like the network had the clout to invade an entire NFL stadium, cited as a factor in those rights shifting to CTV.
However, this sort of chutzpah actually foreshadowed the future of conventional television. Consider the show-closing attraction this morning at the Elgin — the Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang providing the ultimate product placement as the co-star of NBC’s Knight Rider. Oh, the next gen David Hasselhoff was there, too.
First came the local yokels, though: Mike Holmes is heading to the Ninth Ward of New Orleans this summer to film Make It Right. The construction hunk would likely pass through the room unrecognized if not for his brown overalls — he’s our own real-life version of Duffman, a do-gooder sharing a mission with Brad Pitt.
Demographics are being repeatedly emphasized in the presentation upstairs, specifically the stats showing that Canwest held its own in the 18-to-49 demographic last season, even if the overall numbers found them falling behind the CBC in overall share due to the writer’s strike. Nonetheless, they’ve flown in a show host who’ll be playing best in retirement homes — Dr. Travis Stork, a former wife-picker on The Bachelor who is now host of The Doctors, where he joins four medical specialists in discussing the latest ailments each afternoon.
Stork looks like the real-life adult manifestation of Doogie Howser, MD, and promises the show will focus on hot topics like Heath Ledger’s pharmacology.
Home Heist stars Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan are next on display. Seems like the concept of a married same-sex couple hosting a show focused on home décor improvement has become so cliché that Canwest has made a concerted effort to recruit the gayest gays in the gaylaxy — more specifically, Glasgow, where the pair first hooked up around age 16. Their kilted act proved popular enough on HGTV Canada for them to take up residence here, invading suburban basements too often used as a refuge for old sofas, retired TV sets, and rec room wet bars.
While it’s not even 10am, the media scrum is already restless for some actual wattage. Parvati Shallow delivers the goods — she’s the excellently named $1-millon winner of Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites, having previously competed in Survivor: Cook Island. More importantly, her previous on-screen credit was as a foxy boxing model in a video produced by Perfect 10 magazine.
Shallow is joined by fellow contestants Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth and James Clement and the appeal of Survivor automatically registers, since watching them strive to extend their celebrity past this 16th minute leads one to wonder which configuration of the three most likely engaged in sexual intercourse last night.
No such revelation volunteered at this family event, although Pavarti knows how to wink at a camera, and responds to a question about the process of assimilating back into society by comparing Survivor to a tour of duty in Iraq.
And to what does she credit the survival of the show? “It’s like war without guns.”
While the executives from Canwest are onstage extolling the virtues of offering advertisers one invoice for all the time they care to purchase on their 21 specialty channels in tandem with the old-fashioned ones, there’s a dearth of boldface in the basement. Stars of homegrown shows The Guard and 'da Kink in My Hair nonetheless have eager interviewers waiting — the ones working for Canwest.
Curiously, not fed to the press are two stars from the most talked about new show on Global: 90210. Shenae Grimes, recruited from Degrassi: The Next Generation to be the new doyenne of West Beverly High, and Rob Estes, who plays her principal dad, may just be too valuable to subject to a media scrum.
Not the new star of Knight Rider, though. Justin Breuning seems grateful for the spotlight, pressing the flesh in advance of his opportunity to be more than just a supporting player on daytime soaps. He says all the right things about being a fan of the original series, which started its four-year run in 1982, and whose revival is really just another example of internet-based irony culture run amok.
Hasslelhoff gave his successor some fatherly advice about how to “act” with the reincarnation of the talking automobile, KITT: “Just have a relationship with the car,” says Breuning. “Just imagine a really annoying ex-girlfriend, or something.”
Previously on the Scroll: CTV: Cross Canada Barndance
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