The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 45

mi: i si n. Kkin.w. hm 25. i'')) Dll ENTERTAINMENT Cancon figures lightly in WIC drama lineup Numbers take their toll as Mennier makes an exit vi i band and law partner abandons her on both fronts and she must start over again. Judging Amy casts Amy Brenne-man as a recently divorced mother who moves back in with her own mom to learn survival without a man.

Cold Feet, as the title implies, presents various males having difficulty coping with the women in their lives. The Mike O'Malley Show's lead character is a committed bachelor who tries to walk the tightrope between being his own guy and testing the relationship waters. "There were quite a few good shows but not too many breakaway hits," Lori Rosenberg, ONtv's program director, said about the selection available from U.S. networks this season. "All the U.S.

networks are fighting battles against the cable services so they really want to fine-tune their schedules. They didn't commit to a lot of new shows." Rosenberg said that focus studies show audiences want consistency. As a result, Monday Night Football and, in the Ontario market, Maple Leafs hockey have been dropped. "It became more important to invest in our U.S. prime-time programming." WIC executives, meanwhile, are turning a blind eye to their perennial business headaches.

For years, WIC has suffered corporate uncertainty because of a prolonged ownership dispute over its assets. Calgary-based Shaw Communications and Can West Global of Winnipeg are continuing a messy shareholder feud for the rights to WIC's TV licences. "It doesn't exist," said Roy Gardner WIC's national programming vice-president. "Our mandate from the board is business as usual." Gardner believes the stalemate will not be settled in the foreseeable future. He noted that since an agreement the two parties reached last fall fell apart, they haven't had a single serious discussion about the values behind the assets in question.

"So we don't anticipate that taking place at an early stage," he added. He also noted that a parallel Can West lawsuit against WIC in the B.C. courts over ownership control doesn't come to trial until September of next year, with the prospect of an appeal after that. a si. AI.EXSTRACHAN SUN TELEVISION CRITIC Paul Mennier is bidding Vancouver and VTV au revoir.

When the 36-year-old, St. John, N.B.-born anchor signs off Vancouver Live Six for the last time at 7 p.m. this evening, he will be writing the final chapter on what he describes as a two-year roller-coaster ride with the fledgling station. The parting is amicable: Mennier is headed for the greener pastures of Edmonton's Craig family-owned A Channel (CKEM-TV) and Alberta's less onerous tax laws. Mennier's co-anchor, Mi-Jung Lee, will hold down the fort with rotating co-anchors at Vancouver Live Six until Mennier's replacement is named.

VTV established a lively if occasionally disorganized newscast during Mennier's two-year tenure, and last year won the Radio-Television News Directors Association award as the best local newscast in Canada. During those two years, however, VTV has struggled to find its early newscast an audience. Although the station is enjoying considerable success with its late-night news second only to BCTV's News Hour Final in the local ratings the supper-hour Live Six continues to struggle, snagging an average 17,000 viewers a night, well off the pace of its three competitors. Mennier was hired from Nova Scotia's CTV affiliate ATV (Atlantic Television), with original VTV news director and executive producer Bob McLaughlin. Mennier said that while his decision to move on was made for positive reasons, he admitted that the losing ratings battle took its toll.

"I tried not to look at numbers, but when I did it made me physically sick," Mennier said. "So, to quote Roberto Duran, no mas. You can rationalize bad numbers if your product sucks, but when you know you're producing good work, it's very hard to live with. Still, the people make their decision. And the people are always right, right? That's the diplomatic way to say it." Mennier's new job in Edmonton started with a bang.

During his job interview there last Wednesday, a mail bomb went off in the newsroom, slightly injuring two employees. "I don't know who's writing the script for my life, but whoever it is has a twisted mind," Mennier said. "It's a very odd story." Mennier said that although he was JOHN McKAY CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO Betcha didn't know the Amazon jungle is Canadian. It is as far as the programmers for WIC Television's fall prime-time lineup are concerned. Peter Benchley's Amazon, the big-budget, big-concept adventure series being filmed in Toronto and Australia by Alliance Atlantis, leads the list of new shows to debut in the 1999-2000 season on the Western International Communications system of TV stations, often described as Canada's fourth network behind CBC, CTV and Global.

In B.C., WIC owns the BCTV television station in Vancouver, CHEK in Victoria and CHBC in the Okanagan, as well as Vancouver radio stations CKNW and CFMI. Amazon, inspired by an idea created by Benchley, the author of Jaws, is about six plane-crash survivors of no particular nationality who face various jungle terrors, both human and wildlife, as they try to make their way back to civilization. Along with seven more episodes of Emily of New Moon, it's about as close to Canadian content as WIC gets in a schedule that, as in past years, is top-heavy with American network imports. Brian Ellis, vice-president of the Hamilton, ONtv, said at WIC's fall launch event this week that he believes shows that feature Canadian talent both in front of and behind the camera qualify as domestic content, even if they don't fit Heritage Minister Sheila Copps' definition that they should be telling Canadian stories. The eight new U.S.

shows, incidentally, dwell heavily on young urban relationship story lines. And if there is one continuing thread through them all, it is that white males, as perhaps the last social sector still eligible for open ridicule, will take a beating on the airwaves this fall. Invariably, the male characters except in the show Cosby are wimps, bullies, immature or just plain unable to commit. In Family Man, Alfred Molina plays the lone beleaguered man in a household that includes a wife, ex-wife, possessive mother, overbearing mother-in-law and opinionated daughters. In Family Law, Kathleen Quinlan's hus- SURVIVAL: A partially made-in-Canada MISSING NUMBERS: Mi-Jung Lee and approached on the sly, "my cover was blown almost immediately" and rumours had been circulating in the VTV newsroom for nearly two weeks about his impending departure.

Gabereau! host and former CBC-Ra-dio chat maven Vicki Gabereau said Mennier will be missed. "It's too bad, because I'm very fond of the guy," Gabereau said. "Everybody else in the market in Vancouver has been here forever, and being a new face he made a really nice juxtaposition." Mennier said he wanted to work again for a small, family-owned business rather than the large, largely faceless conglomerate that is CTV. Mennier cut his news teeth with Nova Scotia's ATV at the time it was owned by Moses Znaimer's CHUM group. Two years ago, as part of Toronto-based Baton Broadcasting's nationwide expansion and consolidation into one company under the name CTV, Baton bought ATV from Znaimer and won its licence bid for a new station in Vancouver a station that would eventually become VTV.

Mennier downplayed speculation Paul Mennier of Vancouver Live 6. that VTV's newsroom is beset by turmoil. "Any start-up station is going to experience upheaval," he said. "More than anything else, the turnover indicates the high quality of the people they hired in the first place. These were people who were very good at what they do, and it was only a matter of time before they moved on to better things." Mennier admitted being startled by his Halifax colleague McLaughlin's sudden layoff last month, but added that his Vancouver stint was an experience he wouldn't trade for anything.

Mennier leaves behind many friends at VTV. He describes news producer Margo Harper as "the best 6 p.m. producer in the city" and says one of his first purchases will be a satellite dish so he can see how his former Live Six colleagues perform in his absence. "I'm rooting for them to get the numbers they deserve," he said. Mennier said Canadians from other parts of the country are having second thoughts about working in overtaxed, overpriced Vancouver market.

Besides, he said, "Edmonton has a better hockey team." and will still host and produce several "Big Life specials. Conlon, too, will continue hosting special editions of his open-line program. And Thomas will take on new producer-anchor responsibilities on Newsworld International. It was announced previously that Pamela Wallin's nightly chat show will be reduced to a half hour Mondays to Thursdays with a special Friday night hour that will be repeated on Sunday nights. Also, Donna Lee Aprile will executive produce the new Cultural Unit program, which will include Benmergui, Laurie Brown and Evan Solomon.

The full Newsworld program schedule for fall will be announced in late August. Community Concert Series presents -Newsworld tightens fall schedule JOHN McKAY CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO Benmergui Live, Daniel Richler's Big Life, Patrick Conlon's On the Line and Sunday Morning Live with Christopher Thomas will not return this fall to CBC Newsworld. In addition, Newsworld head Tony Burman announced Thursday that six permanent employees in Toronto and one in Ottawa will receive notices that their jobs are disappearing. "The broadcasting industry in Canada is very competitive and our viewers expect Newsworld to protect its position with aggressiveness and imagination," said Burman in a note to staff. "We can't stand still and expect to grow." Amazon leads WIC's fall drama lineup.

mm in tin rr rt The changes conclude a program overhaul that started last month with the announcement that Newsworld planned to place more emphasis on its roots, namely news, and especially live coverage of breaking events. At the time, it was announced that 25 jobs would be affected by either transfers or redundancies. That angered union spokesmen, who accused CBC of bad-faith bargaining in recent negotiations. Under the changes announced Thursday, Ralph Benmergui, while losing his daily program, will become a special contributor to CBC Morning and On the Arts. Richler will become a special contributor to the nightly Newsworld Reports The Vancouver Sun THE VANCOUVER HT-l I GASTOWN 1 Ml 6.

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