Recapping the Canadian TV upfronts

TORONTO – If you think the Stanley Cup final is war, try the Canadian TV upfronts.

Rogers, Shaw and Bell each hosted press previews of their 2015-16 lineups this week in Toronto. CBC held their new season showcase last week. The media companies wine and dine advertisers in hopes they’ll sell them commercial time “upfront” of the new seasons.

Media companies are hustling to stay one step ahead of the digital revolution. Still, the old fashioned Canadian TV game of importing and simulcasting American content — as well as producing the occasional Canadian show — goes on as usual.

The competition for content — and bragging rights — remains fierce. This was most evident in duelling releases sent out this week by Bell and Rogers, with both claiming to own the nation’s No. 1 sports brands. Bell says the ratings back their claim that more Canadians watch TSN than Sportsnet. Rogers says if you add up all the viewing on the multiple Sportsnet and TSN channels, they drew the lion’s share.

Beyond the trash talk, some significant programming moves were announced this week.

Sunday remains a big battleground. Last season, Rogers thought a third night of NHL action would help them bodycheck their way into the competitive mix. Instead, early games left holes on City’s Vancouver schedule. NFL football on CTV and TSN was often outdrawing “Hometown Hockey” on City. Rogers found viewers who got their NHL fix on Fridays and Saturdays were not about to abandon “The Walking Dead,” “Game of Thrones,” “Downton Abbey” and Netflix fare on Sundays.

Rogers programming vice-president Hayden Mindell leapt at a proven content fix. He picked up two animated Fox comedies that Global had more or less discarded — “Family Guy” and “Bob’s Burgers” — and plugged them into his Sunday schedule. He paired them with the Winnipeg-based Canadian sketch comedy “Sunnyside” and a comedy no one in Canada bought when it premiered in the U.S. this past winter: “The Last Man on Earth.”

Mindell’s challenge will be to exploit the hot property Rogers stumbled onto last season, Fox’s No. 1 hit “Empire.” Last year, Rogers had it buried on OMNI stations and even this fall on City it won’t be in simulcast. The buzziest show Mindell picked up for this fall may be “Scream Queens,” a slasher serial from “Glee” boss Ryan Murphy.

Rogers also managed to hold onto “The Mindy Project,” a cult comedy that migrated to the digital platform Hulu in the U.S. They also got back into the late night game with “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which they’ll simulcast in Toronto and other markets starting this September.

Among the 13 shows Shaw’s Global added to its 2015-16 schedule are several new hour-long dramas, including a TV-version of “Minority Report,” the reboot “Heroes Reborn” and the new “Supergirl” series, a CBS pickup aimed at bringing younger viewers to the network.

While Rogers and Shaw have ripped apart schedules and entire nights, Bell added just four new shows to top-rated CTV: hour-long dramas “Blindspot,” “Code Black,” “Blood & Oil” and the elite FBI action hour “Quantico.” King feels serials-slash-procedurals are the new broadcast network norm.

The private networks play down the shocking lack of new Canadian content at these upfronts. CTV, Global and Rogers have no new homegrown shows this fall. CTV also quietly announced Thursday that they were cancelling “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” which aired on MTV, after 14 seasons.

Viewers will have to wait until the New Year for fresh Cancon to kick in.

Global has “The Code” with Jason Priestley starring as a former pro hockey enforcer turned crime-solving P.I. “Houdini and Doyle” is a new historical drama helmed by “House” creator David Shore. At Rogers, the foreign language series “Blood & Water” will be — after 36 years — OMNI’s first-ever scripted procedural drama.

A few of the new U.S. network imports will be shot in Canada, including CTV pickups “Quantico” (Montreal), Global’s “Heroes Reborn” (Toronto) and CTV’s mid-season imports “Lucifer” and “The Flash” spin-off “D.C.’s Legends of Tomorrow”(Vancouver).

— Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.