New CBC TV drama series struggling to keep audiences
CBC Television is shuffling two of its new anchor dramas, in an attempt to boost sagging ratings.
Steamy hockey soap-opera MVP will move to Tuesday nights, bumping jPod to Fridays beginning this week.
Media In Canada reports:
Both one-hours struggled to maintain audiences in the key 25-54 demographic. Produced in Vancouver, jPod started off with 293,000 in the Tuesday 9 pm time slot, but by the third week had dropped to 100,000. The story is much the same for MVP, about the office antics of hockey pros and their wives and girlfriends, which garnered 208,000 viewers in the demo with its debut, but was down to 51,000 last week.
Like drama series Intelligence, the shows are garnering positive reviews from critics; the reviews don’t seem to translate into viewers in the numbers CBC had hoped for. (CBC has yet to make a decision on whether it will renew Intelligence for a third season. The show’s producer, Chris Haddock, says CBC is dragging its feet on a decision and failed to promote the previous two seasons to his satisfaction.)
On Tuesday nights, MVP will now compete against ratings powerhouse American Idol on CTV and House on Global (though the latter has been airing re-runs for about two months, owing to the American writers’ strike).
THE GOOD NEWS?
It’s not all bad news at CBC Television. The sitcom Sophie was recently sold to ABC Family, and rumours say The Border will be sold to CBS or ABC soon. Reality series The Week the Women Went earned nearly 900,000 viewers last week.
An a memo to staff this morning titled “Champagne anyone?” CBC’s head of English services Richard Stursberg said CBC Television has “had an excellent season so far, including the highest launch week prime-time share (8.3%) in six years. And our fall regular season prime-time share is 7.6%, a 0.7 percentage point increase over 06/07.”
Our new research, tracking public opinion and perceptions about CBC-TV, suggests we’re making significant gains across the board. We measure people’s attitudes towards us; how people feel about the programs we broadcast. We think it’s important to know not only how many people are watching and what they watch, but how they feel about us. And when it comes to the values we at the CBC really care about, it turns out we leave the competition in the dust. Specifically, CBC continues to lead the other two conventional broadcasters on measures like “Distinctively Canadian” and “High Quality Programming.”
The memo did not mention MVP, jPod, or any information on CBC Radio numbers.
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I’d still very much like to see The Border and Intelligence partnered on the schedule. Something for everyone in the espionage drama vein if that could be arranged.
I’d also like to see Da Vinci and This Is Wonderland brought back. Both of those shows fit niches in my mental viewing spaces quite well and I still miss them.
I’ve got to take a look at jPod sometime soon.
To be honest, it’s because they’re bad.
The concepts are brilliant, but they’re horribly over-acted. The sets aren’t dressed properly, the sound design is non existent, the characters are caricatures beyond reasonable belief.
I really wanted to like both shows, I couldnt make it through 20 minutes of either.
I don’t want to generalize too much bz, but I agree with the over-acted and caricatured nature observations, with respect to "The Border".
With respect to jPod, I did detect some of Douglas Coupland’s irony and quirkyness reflected in the plot and characters, and this I liked. However my "sweet, fluffy, happy ending" detector is beginning to sound. Keep the rapid-fire quirks and twists, jPod, don’t make it too saccharine.
For overall writing quality I look to Intelligence. Truly non formulaic! Depth of characters, many interesting story arcs.
Mr. Stursberg I don’t know whether the current situation calls for champagne. Your results are perhaps skewed significantly by the writers strike.
Save "Intelligence" !!
jPod is amazing! How do they calculate viewership anyway?
I’ve been watching The Border and jPod. I didn’t notice the over-acting myself, but perhaps that’s because shows like House and CSI set the over-acting bar pretty high.
How do people decide what to watch, anyway? Is scheduling the big factor, or is something else more important? (I’d pick promotion as the missing component, though that’s quite an uphill battle given that CBC won’t get ad time during U.S. shows on CTV, nor will it get mentions in the other U.S. media Canadians like consuming so much… Little Mosque launch excepted.)
I’ve always been surprised at how anti-patriotic most Canadians I know are. ("Oh it’s Canadian? Then it’s probably not very good. Not that I’ve watched it.") But I’d take Da Vinci’s Inquest over CSI any day.
Do they air repeats of these shows at any other time throughout the week? cuz maybe they should…. if there were repeats throughout the week (at low viewership times- late @ night?) the shows would have a better chance of catching more eyes and interest.
not everyone is available to watch the shows when they are on. i would love to watch jpod, but i am always at work when the new episodes air… most of the shows i actually watch consistently are the ones available for streaming online (i.e. the hour)….
i merely pose a suggestion that could give a new canadian show a solid chance to be successful.
S, episodes of jPod are available online.
http://www.cbc.ca/jpod/
jPod is a lot of fun to watch, and it could be a real success if it finds an audience. However it may not find an audience while it’s being broadcast on a Canadian-only network. It’s the kind of thing where we should be getting full epis up on the Web and trying to build a multinational online audience.
The Border isn’t bad, but it definitely does suffer from the old CanCon syndrome. It’s not just the overacting (which is somehow of a different kind than you’d see on House). It’s got that CanCon look and feel somehow. And unfortunately that’s a liability for a show of this kind. Whereas for Wonderland, it was just more quirky stuff that fit nicely with the other quirky stuff.
I think jPod can transcend the cancon issues on the same (quirky) tack. Maybe the Ceeb should just go to an all-quirky-all-the-time drama and comedy policy. I suspect it might work out much better in the long run.
As forThe Border, (or The Boring) this so called drama is not even a "border case" for keeping it around(reason it was, or is, being sold to the USTV, is because they are desperate for anything because of the strike> as as for that computer geek onThe Boring, why the hell is he always eating? INTELLIGENCE is an excellent example of what good tv drama should be all about> for heavens sake CBCTV keep this one
jPod is such an amazing show that I don’t understand how it’s not getting attention. It’s one of the most creative shows that I’ve watched.
oh my! thank you Terry
My husband and I love jPod. Kind of irked about the move to Friday nights–especially since my TiVo went ahead and tried to record it tonight (Tuesday). Shouldn’t the TiVo listings have been updated? Also, it would have been nice if they’d at least showed a little announcement before the start of MVP to say "jPod has now moved to Fridays".
There’s a jPod group on Facebook and judging from the comments there, quite a few fans are annoyed about the time change.
Jpod is fun – another win for SFU exteriors. I work in IT and can certainly relate to the characters…
Well, it’s because they suck. Classic CBC ersatz productions. Not to mention Jpod has repatriated Alan Thicke, which consitutes a crime in and of itself.
The Border has very good production values, but it has a stale premise and bad writing. What others are calling the look of Cancon I just call Toronto schlock, because that’s where most of these shows come from, for whatever reason. MVP I haven’t even bothered to watch. I only saw the first episode of Sophie but it seemed fresh and you do get some of the Montreal feel from it, and that adds to its uniqueness makes it more interesting. Jpod is killingly funny. It’s the best show of the three by far, but I don’t know how many boomers will like it because it mocks them mercilessly. It may well go over many of their heads. I think it still has a rough edge or two, and in a few places it goes a little too far over the top, like the disposing of the dead body bit, but it’s very strong overall and every episode has a number of side-splitting moments that hit the mark so well that they flash back on you all week long. Is this show this generation’s Northern Exposure? Maybe it’s more like the Coen brothers doing a television show inspired by Goodbye Lenin! but based in Electronic Arts’ office in Vancouver. Or maybe it’s just Douglas Copeland. Whatever it is it’s brilliant.
Do they take into account the website viewings of jPod? Also, most of my friends out here in Vancouver (being student, who don’t have cable and antenna reception is the suck) download it. Most likely illegally because CBC’s website version is OK but small and sometimes lagging.
Forget all of this seasons new shows – More Intelligence please!
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I religiously watched both the first and second season of Intelligence. It is a great show, with a great cast. I will be very disapointed if it is cut! It deals with complex issues accross the board. Which is why I love it! Bring Intelligence back for season III!
As soon as I saw that promo for MVP all I could think was "terrible rip off of the British Series Footballer’s Wives". Why would they move a good show that people watch(Jpod) and replace it with a show that is clearly trash(MVP). I’ve only seen a few episodes of Intelligence and am on the fence about it but it is CLEARLY more interesting than a show about snotty puck bunnies.
JPod is an amazing show!!Can’t believe people are not catching on!!
As a watcher of all kinds of programming I find intelligence to be an incredibly drawing viewing experience. Well written, produced and acted it is far and above anything else on TV globally to date.
I will be soooo pissed if it isnt renewed for season three…..
I LOVE The Border! I just started watching it but I’m hooked. I think it’s a great show. I’m surprised more people aren’t watching – I’m a 20-something addicted to the CBC and wish more people my age would get on the wagon with these great Canadian shows. I haven’t seen jpod yet and somehow have not even heard of Intelligence…
If CBC would advertise Intelligence then the ratings would go up. Another example of mis-management from CBC. There isn’t any advertizing when the season starts or the needed regular advertizing for the weekly time slot. It doesn’t take a brilliant business person to know that one needs to advertise and a company need to spend abit of money to gain alot back.
So, if CBC doesn’t mind, please bring back Intelligence and this time do it correctly.
Let’s be decisive here, The Border straight up, is successful because its really stupid. The first episode, the computer scene was straight out of dane cook’s making fun of the computer guy circa 95, a Matrix screen saver acting as a brute force password cracker, where the character literally says, "I just need a few more seconds" is offensive. Jpod stumbled on one episode, ep 7, and it still wasn’t bad, this was the first one to deviate from the book, episode 8 was great, you people have to figure out that its A TWO THOUSAND AND F’ING EIGHT, rating aren’t only what viewers watch on tv, there is, i’m not going to even say it but its starts with a W or an I. People watch it there as well as tv, but correct me, didn’t you all move JPod’s slot at least once? Tuesday to Friday? anyway. The Border is not a good show, it is the Facebook to Jpod’s Myspace, Myspace has a point, Facebook is basically young people imitating young Hollywood, nothing to be proud of and not a challenge outside of genetic gambling. Whatelse, did i mention the reason why your getting ratings with the border is because its stupid? cause that is the reason, make no mistake. If you realized more awareness and interest was developing is Jpod, i can’t speak for intelligence or hockey wives, however, they are probably pretty good as well, more interesting advertising might come your way to my tax paying station. Your all just not used to having more than one show that isn’t Rick Mercer or something equally as innovative (yawn) be on your network. I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this this year, Jpod is the first show I actually watched on CBC since Kids in the Hall, i watched two episodes of The border, one and two. Rifingdiculous, the Most Cliched Bunch of F’ing Crap i’ve seen, i’m glad its successful merely for the computer guy character, just so you people come to your senses and renew Jpod, just so he can guest star, cause he’s quite a talented funny man. The funnier thing, is to see what you, ahem, people, come up with as alternatives in the place of the shows you cancelled. The Olympics, your worse than politicians.
Intelligence is painted like its the Wire, i’m sure its fine. The Border is by all means laughably awful, forum posts on a couple torrent sites from users from other parts of the world basically enjoy the for its terrible everything. (in mock dumb voice) Bad peepa come, canaduh get them, merica rest them, canada mad…[and dane cook style computer nerd "just give me one more minute…" … retarded.
Jpod, outside of one miss, ep 7, is the first show in over 15 years i’ve made an effort to watch regularily, the cancellation of that is ridiculous. people download it, you can’t just look at tv only for inlfuence, tell your advertisers, oh wait, sorry, i mean, you don’t really need advertising, so that whole line is now skewed. The Border gets numbers cause people gravitate to what they are comfortable with, … not thinking and not developing a sense of humour. The REAL funny thing is WHAT YOU FOOLS are going to replace the shows your cancelling with. Morons. I mean that in the nicest way.
I love MVP!
Jpod is Brilliant, cancelling has angered many. How could they make an informed decision to cancel after only airing for a month and a half, and moving it to Friday’s when their whole demographic is likely not home? Why offer it online if you don’t take those numbers into account too?
jPod is uniquely Canadian, and it seems all the CBC tries to do is become more American by putting ot drivel like Sophie, and wannabe The Wire Border. Why did they even greenlight jPod anyway if they were not going to give it a chance?
The CBC is not in touch with real Canadians, and we’re paying for this?!
They never gave jPod a chance, shame on you, CBC!