This is a first for URBMN: AUDIO!  Yes, you get to hear me ask four questions to Murdoch Mysteries‘ Yannick Bisson.  Bisson plays title character William Murdoch, a detective in 1890s Toronto using primitive forensic science to solve his cases.  Murdoch Mysteries has recently been renewed for a fifth season, the fourth season premiering on CityTV Tuesday, June 7 at 9:00 PM ET/PT, 8:00 PM MT/CT.

Link to the MP3 (Posterous)

Admittedly, I’m out of my element here.  The interview isn’t as in-depth as I’d like.  The whole piece is four minutes long, and edited within three hours.  Hey, it’s out, and I get to use the moribund Posterous account again.  I should have more MP3-related fun within two weeks.  In the meantime, enjoy my mumblemouth.

Long day for me.  Let’s get right to what you love: highlights.

You saw CTV’s summer schedule.  Now here’s Global’s.  Second verse, same as the first.

• Global will debut Combat Hospital The Hot Zone Combat Hospital Tuesday, June 21 at 10:00 PM ET/PT, in simulcast with ABC.
• Rookie Blue‘s second season will begin Thursday, June 23, at 10:00 PM ET/PT.  Rookie Blue is also in simulcast with ABC.
• The Kennedys will make its Global debut Monday, July 4, at 8:00 PM ET/PT, in the form of eight one-hour episodes.
• Canada Sings begins Wednesday, August 10, at 9:00 PM ET/PT.
• NBC Universal, Entertainment One and Global will develop a television adaptation of John Grisham’s The Firm for midseason 2012.  The show is executive produced by Grisham and Lukas Reiter.

I realize the first two pieces are from last week, but news has been slow lately.  CTV announced two pilots and a series order on Thursday, December 9.  The two hour-long CTV pilots are Saving Hope, a medical drama set in Toronto, and Stay with Me, about a lawyer/stay-at-home mother.  Ilana Frank’s Thump Inc. is behind Saving Hope, while Sarrazin Couture Entertainment is behind Stay with Me.

In addition, CTV and MuchMusic have ordered six one-hour episodes of Epitome Pictures’ Highland Gardens, a show about young Canadians trying to make it in Hollywood.  Epitome Pictures is best known for Degrassi: the Next Generation/Degrassi and Instant Star.  The showrunner is Martin Gero, a man best known for Stargate Atlantis, Young People Fucking and HBO’s Bored to Death.

I can safely say I am not interested in the two CTV pilots.  As someone commented at TV, Eh?, they read like St. Elsewhere and The Good Wife.

Highland Gardens sounds similarly generic, but Gero could make something out of the premise.  Likewise, Malcolm MacRury’s attached to Saving Hope, which probably means Cra$h & Burn is dead in the water.

I’m not going to complain about the three new projects, given that they won’t make air until at least the 2011-12 season, but CTV isn’t much for originality.  At least CTV’s not ripping off $#*! My Dad Says yet.

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CityTV’s midseason slate includes the second season of My RONA Home (Sunday, April 3, 2011: 9:00 PM ET) and the fourth season of Murdoch Mysteries (Wednesday, March 16, 2011: 10:00 PM ET.)  Airdates and times are, of course, subject to change.

CityTV’s midseason is stuffed full of American shows and Law & Order: UK.  I don’t want to dog CityTV, but when did it become the most conservative networklet in Canadian television?  Most of the prime-time schedule consists of NBC and ABC shows not nailed down by Shaw Media or CTV.  Murdoch Mysteries is being rerun in two different timeslots.

I’m not going to blame Rogers entirely for the channel rot, as CityTV has been on a slow, steady decline since the tail end of the CHUM Television era.  At the same time…My RONA Home and Out There with Melissa DiMarco reruns?!  I honestly can’t believe we’ve come to this point.

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CTV will debut one show in the beginning of January.  The Marilyn Denis Show‘s first episode will air Monday, January 10, 2011, at 10:00 AM ET/PT.  In addition, The Listener‘s second season will premiere Friday, January 28, 2011, at 8:00 PM ET/PT.

Flashpoint has a “mid-season premiere,” which is a fancy way of saying holiday specials are over for another year.  The show returns Tuesday, January 4, 2011, at 10:00 PM ET/PT.

Not to be outdone in the CanCon department, Global has…given a second window to Haven.  The first-season premiere airs Friday, January 21, 2011, at 9:00 PM ET/PT.  Yes.  One show, and it’s imported from Showcase.

Seriously, news like this makes me wonder why the hell I do URBMN.  I understand the limitations of Canadian television, but Canadian content laws need to be tightened up when networks like Global and CityTV whittle the CanCon stick down to a shiv.  This country is just now inching to the point where our shows are becoming Americanized.

Meanwhile, Shaw Media is continuing the Canwest practice of slapping a show across five or six channels.  It boggles the mind.  Oh, well.  Enjoy Bob’s Burgers and Winter Wipeout.

I can’t say much about CityTV’s Mark Dailey (1953-2010) that hasn’t already been said: transplanted American, crime reporter, news anchor, voiceover actor, Toronto television mainstay, sometime truck driver.  Dailey died December 6, 2010 of cancer at the age of 57.

Perhaps Dailey’s greatest achievement was as CityTV’s longtime announcer.  Few announcers are as synonymous with Canadian channels as Dailey was with CityTV.  Dailey regularly took the piss out of the shows and films CityTV would screen at any given time.  ”CityTV…everywhere” is one of Canadian television’s great catchphrases.

The best way to eulogize Dailey is with a few clips, featuring him in his element.  I don’t even care that this is a Toronto-centric story.  Dailey was to CityTV what, say, Bob Boving was to CBC Television from 1985-2002.  You might not have known his name, but you knew his voice – the difference, of course, being that Bob Boving wouldn’t have panned Happy Gilmore or The Raccoons on-air.  CityTV didn’t care much for reverence back in the bad ol’ days.

Playback Online reports that CityTV has renewed Conviction Kitchen for a second season.  The Cineflix Productions show debuted on CityTV September 13, 2009.

Felons appearing on Conviction Kitchen (note the title’s double meaning) try to establish a high-end restaurant in three weeks, with no prior culinary experience.  Marc Thuet is co-owner/executive chef, while Biana Zorich is his business partner.  The show is at once a social experiment and promotion for Thuet’s businesses.

According to NOW Magazine, Conviction Kitchen‘s second season will shoot in Vancouver this April.  The show airs in America on Discovery Networks’ Planet Green.

I normally don’t post news about reality television, but Conviction Kitchen is surprisingly good for its genre.  The show’s emphasis is on how a restaurant is actually run.  Thuet stuns, kills and skins a sheep in the first episode.  Conviction Kitchen does not go for the glamour.

Knowing CityTV’s track record, I give Conviction Kitchen its sophomore season before it’s thrown onto the junk heap with The Collector, Blood Ties, Less Than Kind and Ed the Sock.  I have no idea how Murdoch Mysteries remains on that network.  I’m assuming a blood pact with Baal.

As of tonight, Toronto has CityTV’s only local nighttime television newscasts.  The Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary newscasts have been junked as part of a restructuring effort by Rogers Media Inc., CityTV’s parent company.  CityTV’s Toronto flagship will shed CityNews at Five, CityNews at Noon, CityNews Weekend and CityNews International.

Among on-air personalities, CityTV Toronto will lose CityNews at Six anchor Anne Mroczkowski and CityNews at Noon anchor Laura DiBattista.  In Calgary, Breakfast Television‘s Aisling Slattery has been let go.  CityTV has cut sixty jobs in total.  CityTV uses the “restructuring” euphemism to describe its layoffs.

CityTV is the only Canadian broadcast network not to be part of localtvmatters.ca, so its shedding news jobs is not a hypocritical stance.  That doesn’t mean I like what CityTV is doing.  I’m not sure if CityTV thinks much of its CanCon, between this and losing Less Than Kind.  At this point, OMNI airs more distinctive CanCon.

On a lighter note, CTV PR’s Twitter account briefly razzed the CityTV layoffs.  CablePulse 24, which CTVglobemedia obtained from CHUM Limited in 2007, has expanded Live at 5 and added Live at 5:30 to its schedule.  Yes, CP24 is more CityNews than CityNews.  There’s something unsettling about that.

Breakthrough Films & Television has posted news about Less Than Kind‘s move to HBO Canada.  The second season will premiere on The Movie Network/Movie Central’s multiplex channel Friday, February 19, 2010 at 8:30 PM ET/MT.  The Movie Network and Movie Central’s on-demand channels will offer the entire first season starting February 23, 2010.

CityTV debuted the show in the fall of 2008, originally committing to two seasons.  CityTV had even announced Less Than Kind‘s second season as part of its 2009-10 fall schedule.

I’m aware of Less Than Kind‘s weak first-season ratings.  On the other hand, debuting a domestic sitcom in a 10:30 PM ET Monday timeslot is stupid programming.  I don’t think CityTV knew what to do with the show.

I’m surprised The Movie Network/Movie Central managed to pick up Less Than Kind.  HBO Canada’s Canadian content was previously limited to Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures and the Nasty Show 3 comedy special.  This acquisition almost makes up for TMN/MC greenlighting Ken Finkleman’s latest onanism.  Almost.