Doctor Who’s Greatest Canadian Enemy Returns
That’s right, folks…hockey is back.
The otherwise good news that the NHL players and owners have settled their differences means that the timing of the CBC’s airing of season two is now officially up in the air. This year, with a lockout Canadian fans had the luxury of an uninterupted run of Who—a mere 10 days after UK broadcast—from April to June.
If hockey is back, we won’t have that luxury. Playoff hockey begins to rear its over-exploited head around mid-April and continues to pick up speed (and take up more evening programming) through to early June. In fact the CBC broadcast schedule generally tends to be planned around this phenonemon (hence why most original CBC programming had all but dried up by the time Who aired this spring).
I would suggest that one of two things will happen with airing Season 2:
1) with an early March start to the season in the UK (thanks to the World Cup), perhaps we’ll have an interrupted run, where the first half of the season is shown in Canada 7-10 days after UK broadcast, with the remainder airing after hockey. I don’t think this one very likely myself
2) Doctor Who is aired in the summer, on a weekly basis starting in mid-June. With Doctor Who as the only real original dramatic programming on in the summer anywhere, this could work to their advantage. The CBC had great ratings (for the CBC) when they aired Taken in the summer a few years ago.
One thing’s for sure: Canadian fans are going to remember the glory days of 2005 for a long time.
Posted by Graeme on Thursday, July 14 at 11:45 am
4 Comments...
I hope for the earlier run with a slight interuption. If the next series runs from mid-March (maybe even the first week) then CBC could air it not 7-10 days later but 3 (Saturday then Tuesday) as they did with last years Sherlock Holmes special. So you could possibly get 6 or 7 episodes in before the play-offs. Only the first 2 weeks are really intensive coverage on CBC then it starts to lighten. Add to that the trailers on the games promoting the series at special times. If this was the first series like last year I would say they would have held it over until after the finals but now that they know its a hit they might be inclined to split it up a bit on first broadcast knowing that even in that format it’ll get good first ratings. That way they can do the summer run on Sundays. If they make it an original summer first broadcast then it certainly won’t maximize ratings. In that case they might as well hold it off until the fall. Which would be bad for us as viewers but good for them in ratings.
Posted by Ryan on 07/14 at 05:09 PM
If there were ever a reason to do away with hockey, seeing new Who is it in my book…
Posted by Michael on 07/15 at 05:00 PM
They should use the Sunday slot that they are currently repeating Series 1 in.
Sunday’s tend to be fairly Hockey free don’t they?
Posted by Kevin on 07/15 at 08:45 PM
hockey or the doctor? i can’t choose! i won’t choose! i’ve never been more conflicted…
Posted by jimmy on 07/17 at 04:13 PM
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