February 24: CTV, Shoppers, NOW!
Today on the Scroll: confusing sitcom promo overkill on CTV; a “youth corner” to replace photo labs at Shoppers Drug Mart; and radio snake oil on Edmonton’s NOW!
Get the Balance Right [Dead Things on Sticks]: CTV are using the Winter Olympics to push two new sitcoms spawned by the crew behind Corner Gas, so why are they running the same confusing 30-second spot over and over again, one that conflates the fact that Dan For Mayor and Hiccups are two separate shows? “The talent’s there,” writes Denis McGrath. “It’s the will that’s weak.” Meanwhile, a Facebook group titled “CTV Stole Our Show!” which claimed Dan For Mayor bore much similarity to an idea submitted to the network titled Elect Dan Molson changed its name under the cloak of night to “Great Minds Think A Like” — did a lawyer place a call?
Shoppers Drug Mart continues its march to general store [Globe and Mail]: Flush with confidence after Toronto Life didn’t have a bad word to say about their rapid expansion, Shoppers CEO Jurgen Schreiber tells a CIBC World Markets retail conference that the store is focused on narrowing down less productive merchandise, as there is little need for them to carry 20 different brands of peanut butter. More interestingly, the drugstore plans to replace some of the space taken up by photo processing departments with “a kind of youth corner.” Concurrently boasting about how much they can be like Walmart is Canadian Tire — company president Mike Arnett tells the Financial Post that people are perfectly content to buy milk there. [Previously on Mondoville]
Expect uninterrupted guitar music [Edmonton Journal]: A new pop radio station launches, sounding like every other pop radio station that came before it, including the claims that it’s different from every other pop radio station that came before it. Doug Pringle, the director of programming for Rawlco, boasts of the new 102.3 NOW! that “all the music we play will be written by the artists who sing it” — but these artists are Pink, Lady Gaga, Nickelback, Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, etc. Also, the hosts “will be able to talk about whatever they want with listeners” and “mega-uninterrupted stretches of music” in overnights will belie the fact that no one wants to buy commercial time during those hours. The more things change, the more they remain the same, though: this is the same braintrust that launched CISS-FM in Toronto in 1993, relentlessly promoted as country music radio for people who couldn’t stand listening to country music.
… and more all day today @mondoville and dailystream@mondoville.com.