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As I walked up to the aquarium to join the rest of my team for the City TV/Omni fall launch, I was trying to guess what format today’s presentation would follow. The only station to have a big “party” type presentation (CBC’s social was a party, but not in the traditional booze and prizes affair of previous years), I wondered if Rogers had accomplished the big-Toronto centric messages they had promised last year. The front entrance and first part of the tropical marine section was cordoned off for our crew. Liquor stations were well attended (both sides of the table) and people milled about for about a 1/2 hour before we were herded into the large central room (just inside from the Beluga tanks).

You can find out more on your own about the City/Omni properties for 2009 at: http://rogerstvsales.ca

The space hadn’t exactly been optimized for the event and as such the cranked volume made it difficult to understand the opening comments. Luckily the reel itself was at the right levels and I could hear everything played. The reel was proceeded by a speech telling the crowd that Rogers believed in conventional television and that by investing in TV, they felt that they were going to be top with some creative spending and key properties. They felt that their real foot forward stemmed from their integration of advertiser branding. Since Channel M (now Omni) has always has a state of the art studio, most agencies that have worked with them know that their production capabilities (and translation services) are excellent. They showed a few clips of how they had integrated brands within some of their news featurettes and specials.  They went on to talk about how important Omni was to this market and reminded us about their growth this past year by adding 2 stations in Alberta.

Then the reel went up.

For 5 minutes, the Omni logo flashed across Caucasian programming with a particularly heavy emphasis on the  2 and 1/2 Men. Other than a mention that they were going to be bringing back some of China and India’s best movies, I was kind of shocked at this year’s presentation compared to the excellent (and research heavy) reports that that they have presented in previous years. I hope they bring back some of their great ethnic programming. Their newscasts in Punjabi, Mandarin and Cantonese had better viewership numbers (in combination) than viewers of the CTV news as of 2 years ago. Who knows  what they’re doing this year? I have to admit, that the Omni portion was a let down. **Edit (june17): Since writing this, Megan has informed me that the ethnic part of the schedule is being released sometime today – still nothing web related, but good to hear they won’t be an ethnic station with nothing but sitcoms from the states.

By this point, it was also becoming obvious that the Roger’s network did not see digital playing any role in their broadcast plans for 2009. I decided to take a look around the room to find people starting to sneak away with newly re-filled glasses of wine. I wondered how long this presentation was going to be having been spoiled with the 1-hour max events  over the past few weeks. Earlier in the day, one of our reps informed us that the presentation was going to take 15 minutes max and we were already at the 20 minute mark.

City TV started their presentation the maxim  “when things are tough, it’s best to make people laugh”. With a schedule stuffed with satire, we’ll see who comes out on top. Remembering what Global had said about not being too impressed with the ABC comedies that were available this year, it was interesting to see that City TV was made up of nothing BUT comedy (save for a medical drama or two).

The City TV reel started with a funny bit from Jay Leno talking about what was happening concurrently on other networks during his new 1-hour show.  To not restrict himself, Jay has promised 98% less murder on his show compared to other shows in the same time-slot. Keeping in mind that Global had mentioned that they thought a sound strategy was going after non-Leno viewers, it makes sense that drama would be his major competition. City is really hanging their hat on their weekday presentations of both the Office (in simulcast repeats) from 7-8 and Jay Leno at 10. They’ve crammed in 5 new shows into their prime rotation including: Accidentally on Purpose, Trauma, Parenthood, Modern Family, and Cougar Town. Mid-season, they have 100 questions and Mercy. Just as well, since both Trauma and Mercy are both hospital/paramedic dramas.

An hour and a half later, they pulled Canadian Jillian Harris, who will be starring in this year’s Bachlorette. It’s also supposed to start in September, but it hasn’t yet appeared on the schedule. They asked her a few questions about the experience, but as she can’t really talk about the details, it was a bit painful to listen to. Afterwards, people were invited to take a photo with the Bachlorette, but after 1.5 hours on our feet, most people just headed back towards the drinks and tapas.

The second station to specifically point out their 15+ hours of simulcast this season, I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before we start to see nothing but American programming in simulcast. Of course, for a web-savvy audience, this is the most useless selling point a TV series can market. With more and more people not making appointment-TV, I believe that 100% simulcast in Canada will happen as a cost-saving measure to keep the soon to be outdated conventional TV format alive for those who haven’t switched over to PVR, digital or broadband viewing.

*Props to Vancouver Aquarium for the corn-based biodegradable cutlery and oceanwise food served.