Source : Ottawa Citizen

Both shows are struggling to stay fresh and win back viewers. The CBC says tumbling ratings are the product of viewer fragmentation, and that it has no intention of abandoning the shows

Hurricane Juan blew through Halifax last week and lopped a half hour off the season opener of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

"We lost a week of production," says the show's executive producer Geoff D 'Eon, explaining why the CBC satire show's 11th season premiere Friday at 9 p.m. is only 30 minutes, instead of the hour-long special planned.

If you believe in omens, this is not the most propitious start to 22 Minutes' second decade. Coming on top of precipitously declining ratings, news that founding cast member Mary Walsh is pulling back from the show, and a temporary loss of financing from the Canadian Television Fund, it's enough to make you wonder how much of the next 10 years 22 Minutes will see.

In its heyday, the show was a Canadian touchstone, drawing as many as 1.4 million viewers a week, and scaring the hell out of politicians and public servants. During the sharp right turn in public affairs in the mid-'90s, Citizen columnist Susan Riley dubbed the show "Canada's official opposition."

22 Minutes' average audience, as late as four years ago, was more than one million viewers. Now it's half that: an average of 512,000 Canadians tuned in last season. As for those quaking politicos, they're now eagerly lining up to be skewered, no longer cowed by the antics of Marg Delahunty, Warrior Princess, or the oblique tongue-lashings of Cathy Jones's Babe Bennett.

Meanwhile, things aren't much better at Canada's other political bear-pit. Though ratings haven't tumbled as much at Royal Canadian Air Farce in the past three years, the decline has been steady. Last year's average audience was 799,000 viewers, far below the 1.3 million the show routinely posted during the first half of its 10-year life. As the audience gets smaller, it is also getting narrower. The largest single demographic for both Air Farce and 22 Minutes is men and women over 50, a group unloved by advertisers.

The CBC says tumbling ratings are the product of viewer fragmentation, and that it has no intention of abandoning the shows. Yet in January, the network is introducing a third weekly current-affairs satire series, Rick Mercer's Monday Report. It will see the former 22 Minutes star criss-crossing the nation to give his querulous take on the news of the week in a manner that's part Dennis Miller and part Jon Stewart. Producer Gerald Lunz calls it "Rick's weekly state-of-the-nation address."

Though not officially a replacement for either 22 Minutes or Air Farce, Monday Report increases the pressure on both shows.

"TV viewers crave fresh meat," says Air Farce's Roger Abbott, who figures Mercer's show is a guaranteed hit, because it's new and because Mercer already has a loyal following.

"You know the old saw about TV being measured in dog years? Ten years ago we were the adorable new puppy. Now we're the old dog that sleeps a lot and you have to watch the carpets," Abbot says.

D'Eon figures there's room for all three shows, providing they take different slants on the news. But, he admits, "this business is Darwinian ... Ultimately the viewers will decide. They'll vote with their clickers."

For the old dogs of Canadian satire, survival will mean reclaiming some of the freshness and edge that marked their early years.

"We've got to find ways not only to bring in new audience, but to bring back the audience who were very loyal to us ... and have wandered off to other choices," says Abbott. "We've got to give them things they haven't seen before, or don't expect from us.

"It's so easy to fall into a rut if you've got a character that the audience likes ... The natural temptation is to use it every week or two," he says. "People love familiarity, but you never know where the line gets crossed between 'Oh I hope they do this,' to 'Are they doing that again?' "

Air Farce begins its new season Friday at 8 p.m. with a novelty: an hour-long program taped late last month in Saint John, N.B. The road trip was inspired by the success of last season's show from Brandon, Man., which drew the highest audience of the season, 1.2 million viewers. Road trips are expensive to produce, says Abbot, but they invigorate the troupe -- Abbott, Don Ferguson and Luba Goy. There may be another trip before the season's over, he says.

Over at 22 Minutes, keeping fresh means an emphasis on new, more youthful faces. Gone after two seasons is Colin Mochrie, an improv genius who lacked the satiric savagery of his colleagues. In his place is young, engaging Newfoundland comic Shaun Majumder, late of the Fox sketch-comedy series, Cedric the Entertainer.

And since Mary Walsh has decided to move back to St. John's to concentrate on film work, and will do as few as six shows this season, D'Eon says there will be a bigger role on the show for another young Newfoundlander, Mark Critz. Critz, who last year contributed field reports, and Majumder play off each other, and are bound to bring a different dynamic to the show, says D'Eon.

Both shows suspect that they have been co-opted to some degree by politicians and power brokers, that they have become too familiar with those whom they are sworn to make uncomfortable.

"It's always a big mistake to get to know your enemy too well," says Abbott. "I don't know if it's the Stockholm Syndrome, or what, but you have to ask yourself: once you've had them on the show a few times, could you be as nasty to them as you could before?"

Once viewers begin to suspect that that a show is "complicit with the political process in the country, then we are doing a disservice to our audience," says D'Eon. "As satirists we have to maintain that edge or we should pack up and go home."

And how to keep the edge honed? "Drink glasses of bile," suggests D'Eon. "Look for new ways to stick it to the man."

In the end, says Abbott, the age of the shows means there has to be some acceptance of audience slippage, "but never to the point where we stop fighting it." And Air Farce will do whatever it takes to keep viewers watching, he says.

"I don't think the audience is ready for full nudity from Luba, Don and me. But I'd never rule anything out: if we can't amuse them, let's disgust them."

If you believe in omens, this is not the most propitious start to 22 Minutes' second decade. Coming on top of precipitously declining ratings, news that founding cast member Mary Walsh is pulling back from the show, and a temporary loss of financing from the Canadian Television Fund, it's enough to make you wonder how much of the next 10 years 22 Minutes will see.

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