In the news: Handicapping Canada’s Next Top Model

Vinay Menon of the Toronto Star rates the models:

Who will be Canada’s Next Top Model?
“So to handicap the 10 new contestants, I consulted psychics, lurked in chatrooms, scrutinized thousands of pictures, performed background checks, analyzed secretly obtained audition footage and, oh yeah, studied interview segments from Star! Daily. Then I poured myself a martini and thanked God my wife never reads this dispatch. “

In the news: CBC’s new ratings system

Guy Dixon of the Globe and Mail reports on CBC’s new system of rating shows:

CBC-TV fine-tunes rating system: Unlike private broadcasters who gauge shows only in terms of revenue, audience numbers and costs, CBC will try to measure ‘public value’
“Known as PARC and detailed in a recent memo from CBC-TV executive vice-president Richard Stursberg to staff, the system gives all CBC shows a target number for their public value (P), expected audience (A), estimated revenues (R) and costs (C). Public value is measured two ways: Shows are given a number on a 1-to-5 scale for their relative distinctiveness, and then audiences are surveyed to measure the shows’ quality.”

Gayle MacDonald of the Globe and Mail talks to Garth Drabinsky about his new reality show:

Garth Drabinsky’s latest really big adventure
“Triple Sensation – aimed at performers aged 16 to 26 – will run on CBC this fall for three nights in the coveted 8-to-10 Sunday-evening time slot. The winner will take home a $150,000 Indigo-Chapters Books-sponsored scholarship that can be used for any theatrical training institution in the world (pending acceptance).”

Gayle MacDonald of the Globe and Mail covers CBC’s launch of the new season:

CBC’s ‘new direction’: more drama, reality TV: Public broadcaster pokes fun at its 2006 flops and promises new shows will satisfy ‘changed’ viewers
“People like to meet characters. They like to fall in love with them, and stay with them for a while. Our goal is to increase the number of people coming to the CBC,” [executive director of network programming Kirstine] Layfield said, adding that in 2006 the network enjoyed its best prime-time season in five years with shows such as Little Mosque on the Prairie, Dragons’ Den, The Rick Mercer Report and Test the Nation: National IQ Test consistently pulling in one million weekly viewers.

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Lee-Anne Goodman of the Canadian Press talks to Iman, the host of Project Runway Canada:

Onetime supermodel Iman host of ‘Project Runway Canada’
“It’s a really a good opportunity to be on a show that’s in a genre that’s not salacious – I’m not keen on salacious television,” she says. “I really do like the format of ‘Project Runway USA’ because it really is about finding talent and nurturing talent. There’s no meanness. The critiques are constructive and the judges are designers and really know what they’re talking about.”