The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 81

i fchc C5nscttc Tccn TV hosts Extra special SECTION Dining Out G6 mat's On G10 Two vounij Montrealers whostarinIpuIar Mechanics for Kids, which debuts on Global tomorrow, ride roller-coasters and explore sewers for the cameras. PageG3 Dill Brtmustein inteniews some of the extras working on the set of Snake Eyes the Nicolas Cage thriller being filmed at the Forum. PageG7 mm ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: LUCINDA CHODAN 987-2568 SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 13, 1997 It I it CLOCK ews V. I 1 Vf i jit )r 1 I -1- i it it r-J it Global's early-evening newscast is just one of the innovations at new English TV station 1 Jf v'Sl- S1 f't r.

"jf 4 I UTL" nil MIKE BOONE Gazette TV and Radio Otitic hat? We waited 36 years for Sharon, Lois and Brani? For the first time since 1961, Montreal has a new English TV station. CKMI-Global Quebec signs on tomorrow morning at 6 with The Elephant Show. Skinamarink-a-doo, Montreal, Global loves you Quebec City and Sherbrooke, too. As the new station proudly proclaims in the slogan that has accompanied a Global promotional reel running through the days leading up to launch: "We're here, we're staying, and we've only just begun." Sounds a bit ominous Freddie Krueger Meets the Carpenters. But the main body of the Global promotional reel includes a succession of comforting deja-vu images.

The station may be new, but most of its shows are familiar: Seinfeld, Frasier, Friends, Mad About You, The X-Files, The Simpsons, 3rd Rock From the Sun, NYPD Blue, Beverly Hills 90210. The shows have been hits for years most of them on CFCF-12, a CTV station that lib JOHN KENNEY. GAZETTE Anchor Heather Hiscox with newsroom boss Benoit Aubin at Global headquarters: young, aggressive, versatile staff. What's new is news. Global wades into Montreal's supper-hour competition with a 30-minute newscast that will be telecast weekday afternoons at 5:30 30 minutes earlier than Pulse and Newswatch.

"We're going to be first," says Global an- -chor Heather Hiscox. "What we bring to the party is an earlier look at what's going on. To early edition was a dismal ratings failure, but it is difficult to say whether the poor numbers were a reflection of p.m. viewing habits or just another manifestation of CBMT-6's chronic ratirigs problems. The Young and thfi Restless will lead into the 5:30 Global newscast.

The 6 p.m. show is erally shopped Global's prime-time lineup before the rival station got its Quebec license. "They're going to have a good schedule," says Channel 12 programming vice-president Bill Merrill, ruefully acknowledging the ones that got away to Global. "What the hell, we spent millions promoting it" when CFCF had the shows. In the annual late-summer promotional blitz that precedes the beginning of another television season, the smiling faces of Jerry Seinfeld, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston et al have been showing up on billboards around town.

What's dif ferent is the station identification: Global, with the red crescent logo that looks like an inverted Nike swoosh. Viewers will tune in cable 3 (or UHF antenna position 46) for some of the shows they enjoyed on CFCF-12. and the latter will fight back witli its own strong schedule, which will include ER. the most popular program on Canadian television. The ratings war will continue to be fought between rival programmers who fill prime time with U.S.

programs. So what difference will Global make? us. that's a big advantage. We're going to be going to be a local entertainment on the air while everyone else is still in the with host Jamie Orchard. The program will editing suite" not start, however, until December.

Some viewers may recall that New swatch tried a 5:30 start time three seasons ago. The Please see GLOBAL, Pane (3 CLASSICAL MUSIC MSO dropped during record-company carnage been allowed to function Independently and compete with each other, sometimes with the same art ists and usually in the same repertoire. Now a new Poly-Gram executive, Christopher Roberts, in effect the classical music boss of bosses, has put an end to the internecine warfare. IXi will dSL The news was shocking, yet somehow not surprising. Charles Du-tolt and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, after 17 busy years of disc-making, had been cast adrift by Dccca-London.

Not for any failure to perform, mind you, but because the Brit Ish label has Ixrn shaken by an International upheaval in the classical recording Industry that might well be iTineinlH'iwI as the crash of '97. ew casual collectors of compart dfcowirr aware that Deutsche Gram-ttiophoii, Philips and London (as Decra Is known In North America) arvall owned by polvGnm, Itself a sub sidiarynf Philips International, one of the bluest companies In the World. For years the corporate siblings have crossover projects. London, the lalx'l of Luciano Pavarottl, will stress oix-ra -a calling not easily reconciled with a virtuoso orchestra conducted by a man who has confessed In Interviews to not much llkingtheoperaplt. It should be stressed that Dutoit and the MSO have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with London, a collaboration tocompare with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St.

Martin In the -Fields on Philips in the 1970s or Eugene Ormamly and the Philadelphia Orchestra on CBS In the The recording contract not filled the orchestra's -tiVweck work ean it gave It visibility and recognition that no surfeit of paid advertising could match. It was the linchpin of its prestige, the spark plug of its tours. Above all, it was Dutoit's best reason not to look for work elsewhere. It will be hard, very hard, to replace. Certainly the MSO has out-recorded Its North American rivals In the digital era the Chicago Symphony under Sir Georg Solti having straddled the tiflnslt Ion nxm analogue.

And while Montrealers have every right to be alarmed by the lost contract, the carnage everywhere has beonapiNircnt. KMI dumped the Philadelphia Or chestra last spring. London parted company ith Vladimir Ashkenazy ft a conductor in lit. The Mine company has released only the first two in stalmeiits of Wagner's Ring ns per-. formed by Christoph von Dohnanyl leading the Cleveland Orchestra.

There are no plans to complete this project, despite London's newfound commitment tooH-ra. Many existing contracts seem tentative. The San Francisco Symphony, having lost Its London connection ith the conductor Herbert Blom-stedt. Is clinging to life on the moribund RCA label with Michael Tilson Thomas. The truth Is that the classical market has been hopelessly saturated, notably by the budget Naxos Libel nitd its many clone, but also by Kiiroi'iu Independents that roinpete tth the mitfors in consumer prestige.

'tow i ARTHUR KAPTAINIS lw the "catalogue" IuIk'I, to which consumers turn for basic classical fare; Philipstno longer called Philips Classics) will dedicate iLself to.