GLOBE AND MAlL - Saturday, March 26, 2005

They got religion
TV networks have caught on to audience cravings for faith-based entertainment, writes Gayle MacDonald

BY GAYLE MACDONALD

One bone-chilling day in February, a group of newly engaged couples were huddled in an office in Toronto’s historic Distillery District slyly checking each other out. They were there to audition for a new show called Prenup Challenge, which, based on reality TV’s fondness for sex and money themes, one might assume involves hard bodies in a Temptation Island setting scheming to get the best payout from their loved ones in the event of — gasp — divorce.

Well, it turns out Prenup Challenge has nary a predator on the prowl for a matrimonial bonanza. This show, now being shot on the island of Dominica, is about earnest young couples, of various religious faiths, going through a rigorous pre-marriage training course to see if they have the spiritual and emotional connection to stay happily married in the eyes of God.

There will be no sex and other shenanigans. And this seemingly perverse reality show, set to air in a few months on Vision TV, is the religious network’s attempt to be less preachy and more populist, all the while capitalizing on what it says is a growing audience demand for more spirituality on TV.

“Our premise is that faith is becoming increasingly popular and Canadians really do have a renewed fascination with it all,” says Suzanna Mandryk, vice-president of communications and marketing for Vision TV, launched 15 years ago in Toronto as a non-profit charity.

Post 9/11, Mandryk insists, people have been seeking out TV with greater spiritual focus and meaning. “It doesn’t seem to matter where you look,” she adds, “people are trying to deal with religious pluralisms in different ways. Vision TV — once a definite alternative TV viewing choice — is now increasingly more mainstream.”

And the quest among viewers for more spirituality in entertainment is growing, she says, pointing to the popularity of Mel Gibson’s blood-thirsty The Passion of the Christ, Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, and a stream of religious-themed shows from conventional broadcasters, now tripping over themselves to satisfy the needs of the “religious demographic.”

This Easter, of course, there will be the usual conventional TV specials that portray Christ in his biblical robes. But just this past week, NBC said it was taking a “fresh” approach to the Holy Bible and Jesus. First, the network unveiled plans for a new six-part apocalyptic thriller called Revelations, starring Bill Pullman as a Harvard professor who teams up with a nun to try to avert Armageddon. NBC also has big 2005-2006 hopes for a pilot drama called The Book of Daniel, which depicts Jesus as a contemporary, cool dude, who appears as a confidant to an Episcopal minister named Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn), a man with family troubles and a predilection for prescription pills. Ranked fourth of the major U.S. networks, NBC — still smarting from the loss of Friends —is clearly praying its new religious offerings connect with audiences in the same way that The Da Vinci Code has commandeered the bestseller lists.

For years, the big broadcasters steered clear of any overtly religious programming, sticking to safe, feel-good shows like NBC’s 1980s hit Highway to Heaven starring Michael Landon and, more recently, CBS’s Joan of Arcadia. That left Mandryk’s Vision TV — and other faith-based channel rivals such as the Eternal World Television Network, CTS (Crossroads Television System) and Salt & Light Television — to pick up the more serious religious slack.

Now, Mandryk says Vision TV is trying to lighten up a little, and develop shows that stick to its mandate, but skew younger and hipper. “We’ve made a determined effort in the past few years to compete for market share rather than to be marginalized as an alternative choice.”

So they’ve come up with shows like Shrines & Homemade Holy Places, currently in production in partnership with Markham Street Films, producers of such documentaries as Flatly Stacked and Penis Dementia. And, of course, catchy reality titles like Prenup Challenge and the network’s version of the perennially popular makeover genre, called Divine Restoration. Each week the hosts and the rest of the Divine Restoration team visit a different church in Canada and help out with a 48-hour renovation project, like installing a kitchen in a shelter for the homeless. The network also launched a cultural-diversity competition, where three out of 90 independent producers vied for $100,000 to make an hour-long drama. One of the winners was a TV adaptation of Trey Anthony’s hit play ’da Kink in My Hair.

All of which has helped to finance edgy documentaries such as Scared Sacred, a special jury prize winner at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, about pilgrimages to ground zeros around the planet. And of course, there’s still such tried-and-true programming as Touched by an Angel, Twice in a Lifetime, Neon Rider, 7th Heaven, the Gaither Gospel Hours, Valerie Pringle’s Test of Faith, Let the Quran Speak, and a Sikh program called Gurbani .

In Canada’s grand cable universe, Vision TV is still a tiny player. But it’s making strides. Mandryk says its prime-time average-minute audience is up 28 per cent this year over last year. Its 24-hour share is up 27 per cent in 2004 over 2003, suggesting to Mandryk that “it’s not only the dramas that are gaining audiences but the faith-based programming too.”

The fastest growing age category for Vision TV is 18 to 49, up 53 per cent over last year.

Sunni Boot, president of Toronto media manager Zenith Optimedia Canada, says Vision TV is still way under the radar of most mainstream advertisers, but is clearly gaining some toeholds.

“Of the 30 major cable stations we measure for all viewers aged 2-plus in English Canada, Vision TV is the 16th ranked cable network. It surprised me, frankly, that it is in the middle of the pack. I would have thought it would be 29 of a 30-station market.”

Boot says Vision TV has a prime-time average-minute audience of 41,000 (compared to cable behemoth TSN at 160,000). But she adds, "it’s interesting that they’re moving up in the pecking order.”

She chalks it up to the fact Vision TV provides “exceptionally safe, family viewing and many parents these days want that Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”

In the United States, the population currently seems divided into two camps: Bush and the religious right versus the hedonists of Hollywood. “We don’t have those extremes here,” notes Boot.

Perhaps not. But Mandryk points out: “If you look at essentially what’s happening here, our changing demographics, the increasing immigration, aging population, well, we believe Vision TV is probably better positioned than any other broadcaster to take advantage of the changing trends in the marketplace.”