Earlier this week, I whined commented that I thought North/South should be in the evening.
     I wasn’t the only one. Andrew Ryan from the Globe and Mail wrote:

Most people in this country will be at work today, which means no one will notice the arrival of North/South. Consider it a public shame because there is, or was, potential in the Canadian-made series set amid the Halifax construction industry, but nobody’s going to watch it in the midday TV dead zone, and certainly not in the middle of summer.

CBC programming executive Kristine Layfield took issue with the “dead zone” comment and sent in a letter to the editor to yesterday’s Globe:

[North/South] was specifically produced as part of a daytime drama project we initiated several years ago (another is Vancouver-based 49th and Main). Our goal was to bring fresh faces, voices and stories to our daytime programming. There is no dumping ground at the CBC; we value all of our programming time and all of our viewers.

Okay, it was always the plan, fair enough. But I can understand the argument some people are making that if we’re going to put money into a new drama, we should put it into prime time when more people are watching.

Then again, I don’t watch TV in the daytime. Maybe it desperately needs some good content there. What do you think?

Globe and Mail

I just watched North/South. I loved it. I LOVED it. Great acting, very nice cinematography (sp?) and it’s always nice to see Canadian currency in the scenes rather than American currency.
     If this show were on at 9:30 p.m., just before Mansbridge, I can’t help but thinking it would be a hit. A huge hit. But it’s on Thursdays in the early afternoon.
     At least there are PVRs.

Also saw a promo in the middle of it for The One… I didn’t know the contestants had to live together too and the program showed that. Hmmm.. okay, maybe I’ll watch.

I watched it on my own.

More information is emerging about the upcoming CBC soap opera North/South. As the Canadian Press noted this morning: It “may be a daytime soap opera, but don’t expect anyone to come back from the dead.”
     The show revolves around four very different families within the construction industry in Halifax. Floyd Kane, who created and produced the show for CBC, says the show will be more like Coronation Street than All My Children. “I don’t want to do anything that’s outlandish,” he said. “Everything that’s in North/South will be somehow based on the probable and the possible.”
     For instance, he said that while American outdoor sets are often shot indoors (and look it), the CBC show will shoot outdoors and will have regular-life storylines.
     Read more: North/South

Source: Canadian Press, July 2, 2006