Headline, Industry News

CBC previews fall lineup

TORONTO (CP) _ CBC-TV is keeping breakout hit "Little Mosque on the Prairie" in its fall programming schedule, but cutting the business and entrepreneurial show "Venture" after 22 years on the air.

"It’s had a terrific run," CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said Wednesday as the public broadcaster released a preview of its plans for the 2007-2008 season.

"That sort of content we’ll still be pursuing but it will exist in a show like ‘Marketplace.’ "

Also on the chopping block for the fall is Mary Walsh’s Gemini-winning sitcom "Hatching, Matching and Dispatching," the sexy half-hour comedy "Rumours," the medical drama "Jozi H" and arts and performance show "Opening Night."

The true crime series "72 Hours," the disability show "Moving On" and "Country Canada," about rural living, will also be dropped. The content covered in such programming will be represented in other TV, radio and online shows, said Keay.

"The bottom line I guess for us is that we’re building on the success that we’ve had last season," he said.

CBC is also bringing back recent hits "Test the Nation," "Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister," "The Greatest Canadian Invention" and "Dragons’ Den."

Perennial favourites "Hockey Night in Canada," "This Hour Has 22 Minutes," "The Rick Mercer Report" and "Royal Canadian Air Farce" are also returning.

New fall programming includes "The Tudors," an Irish-Canadian co-production about Henry VIII and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and reality-based arts competition "Triple Sensation."

Viewers can also look forward to "The Border," a Toronto-based series about security in a post-Sept. 11 world, and "Heartland," a multi-generational family series set in the Rocky Mountain foothills of Alberta.

Other new programming includes "No Opportunity Wasted," about chasing your dreams, and "Sophie," about a single mother who inherits a talent agency from her father.

CBC hasn’t mapped out exactly when each program will start airing, said Keay, adding the public broadcaster plans to release its full fall-winter lineup in late May.