CANADIAN BROADCASTERS HAVE gone off script to find their next popular homegrown sitcom.
Betting nothing breeds succeeds like success, the Canadian networks are trying a new business model where Canadian screenwriters with Hollywood studio experience are brought on board to showrun their sitcoms. The trend has CTV ordering the pilot Satisfaction, written and showrun by Los Angeles-based scribe Tim McAuliffe, whose U.S. network credits include Up All Night and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
A Los Angeles rep for McAuliffe said he has rearranged his schedule to be in Toronto to shoot the ensemble comedy pilot for DHX Media, while at the same time fulfilling obligations in Los Angeles.
“It’s really elevated the material, that Tim (McAullife) has been working in the States. And he’s had success in the States,” Sarah Fowlie, director of independent production, Comedy, Bell Media, said of plucking Canadian screenwriters from the industry stratosphere for local gigs.
“A lot of writers up here could really benefit from regularly working in those (U.S. studio) rooms,” she added.
CTV also greenlit a pilot for the multi-camera comedy Spun Out, from creators Brent Piaskoski (According to Jim), Jeff Biederman, Brian K. Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Andrew Barnsley. And earlier in May, Rogers Media gave full-season orders to Package Deal, a comedy from Los Angeles-based creator Andrew Orenstein, and another for the mid-season comedy Seed from Joseph Raso, whose Hollywood credits include Disney’s Zombies and Cheerleaders.
“We really believe the time is right for a Canadian multi-cam sitcom, and feel that Andrew Orenstein’s experience on Malcolm in The Middle and 3rd Rock from the Sun will be definitely be very valuable for this project,” Claire Freedland, director of original programming at Rogers Media Broadcasting, insisted.
Here the broadcasters are looking to Canadian scribes that worked on big-budget projects in Los Angeles to get the tone and pacing right on local sitcoms so they stack up well against pricey U.S. comedy acquisitions on their schedules. “Our objective is to make shows that work on the CTV schedule in a way that the audience enjoys them – in the same way that they enjoy The Big Bang Theory,” Fowlie explained.
The Canadian networks went through the same quality assurance process on homegrown dramas like Rookie Blue and Flashpoint, local shows that ultimately landed U.S. network slots for their Canadian indie producers before selling widely worldwide.
