  Perhaps debating who's smarter, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek (left) and The Nature of Things host David Suzuki (centre) chat with Rick Mercer of The Rick Mercer Report as the CBC announces its fall schedule yesterday. All three shows are in the lineup. (Ernest Doroszuk, Sun Media)
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The CBC wants to talk about all the shows it has coming back next fall.
Shows coming back? Wow, how different is that?
Keep in mind, when a TV network has a full slate of new primetime shows to promote, as exciting as that may be, it means all the old shows failed.
But at the annual "upfront" presentation of fall shows for the public broadcaster yesterday in Toronto, the mood was one of confirmation rather than apology.
"It's a very satisfying feeling," said executive director or programming Kirstine Layfield, referring to the fact the CBC schedule is full of returnees that were launched in the past couple of years. The list includes The Border, Sophie, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Heartland, The Tudors, Dragons' Den, Test the Nation and even the daytime show, Steven and Chris.
"It's such a great compliment to the people who put these shows together, that they get to -- well, not get to come back -- but they've earned the right to come back," Layfield said.
So in other words, no charity comebacks. Not that the CBC ever had to resort to that in past years.
Certainly in terms of Canadian television, as opposed to American television that can be seen on Canadian networks, the balance of power may be shifting a little bit. CTV still has the comedy juggernaut Corner Gas, but creator Brent Butt has decided the coming season will be the last one.
"With (CTV's) Canadian Idol, there still are some really big reality shows, but I think already we have 15 of the top 20 Canadian shows this year," Layfield said. "That's a great marker for us, because it wasn't that long ago when, as a public broadcaster, we didn't have as many Canadians watching Canadian shows as our competitors did.
"That definitely was not a good thing as a public broadcaster. We needed to turn that around."
Besides the new returnees, the CBC lineup also features a number of long-established shows such as The Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, The Fifth Estate and the final season of Air Farce Live, as well as late-night talk show The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos.
Most of the recognizable faces from the CBC lineup were on hand yesterday, as was an old CBC face that has come home again. Alex Trebek and his signature syndicated game-show Jeopardy! will join the CBC schedule this fall, as will Wheel of Fortune.
In terms of new shows for the autumn, the CBC trumpeted a couple of mini-series: Everest, which stars Jason Priestley and William Shatner, was filmed in the Rocky Mountains and tells the story of the first Canadians to reach the highest point on earth, back in 1982.
And Celine is a biopic about Celine Dion, chronicling her humble beginnings in Quebec through to her emergence as an international phenomenon. It stars Christine Ghawi and Celine, Enrico Colantoni as Rene Angelil and Louise Pitre as Therese Dion.
Sometime this fall, the CBC will announce its winter lineup. Remember, it was in the winter season in 2008 that The Border and Sophie (both renewed), as well as MVP and jPod (both axed), first hit the airwaves.
There are at least two new shows tentatively scheduled for early 2009.
Development
"The team that we've had in place with kind of a new development process, most of these shows that are coming back this year, these are the shows that have come out of that," Layfield said.
"Little Mosque was the first of those, and we had a couple of others like Dragons' Den, which could come along faster because of the nature of what they were. But these are now the culmination of a lot of people's hard work as we come to an understanding of what Canadians want to watch on TV."
Canadians sometimes send mixed signals about that.
Be that as it may, the CBC held its "upfront" yesterday and the stars didn't have to wear name tags. That's a very good thing.
