In advance of their Fall Launch event slated for Wednesday, June 7, the folks at CanWest have unveiled their 2006 primetime shopping list in a bid to drive advanced buzz. The net has picked up a total of 14 dramas and eight comedies along with a roster of returning favourites.

‘I think it’s good that they’re trying to create a buzz so early,’ says Helena Shelton, SVP, broadcast operations at Toronto’s The Media Company. ‘We’re all in the business of advertising so why not advertise what you’ve got? It doesn’t hurt.’ Shelton adds that placement, however, is the bigger story. ‘It’s [a question of] where do they fall? What are they up against? That’s what will be of more interest later.’

CanWest’s hour-long dramatic acquisitions for Global and CH include:

· Vanished, a FOX drama about the missing wife of a Georgia Senator starring Gale Harold and Rebecca Gayheart;

· Standoff, yet another FOX product, centres around romantically- involved negotiators in the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit;

· Shark, a legal drama from CBS starring James Woods as a cutthroat defense attorney whose crisis of conscience brings him to the L.A. District prosecutor’s office;

· Psych (also CBS) is a wannabe Medium that chronicles a psychic helping the police;

· the movie-inspired Friday Night Lights is a series about a small town Texas’ football team. Feeling the pressure is head coach Eric Taylor (NBC);

· Heroes is an NBC series about ordinary people who discover they have superpowers;

· Kidnapped (NBC), starring Dana Delany and Timothy Hutton, is a thriller about the kidnapping of a wealthy family’s teen son. Each episode chronicles a day during the kidnapping investigation;

· Runaway is a CW/Sony effort about a family who flees to a small town after receiving death threats;

· Taye Diggs stars in a series entitled Day Break (CBS), a Groundhog Day-inspired story of a detective who lives the same hellish day over and over again;

· Brothers & Sisters from ABC sees the return of Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) to the small screen; the ensemble cast is about the secrets within a large, extended family;

· Six Degrees (ABC) examines the lives of six very different New Yorkers and how they are unconsciously linked to one another;

· Saved from TNT is a character-driven story about a paramedic’s breakneck pace

Raines, an NBC/Universal series starring Jeff Goldblum in a police drama that blends film noir with humour, has been slated for a mid-season run.

Also from NBC/Universal, January 2007 will see the debut of the highly-anticipated Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) created, produced and written The Black Donnellys. The crime series is about Irish working-class brothers involved in organized crime in New York.

The net’s half-hour comedy pickups are:

· ‘Til Death, a FOX/Sony half-hour series about old marriage versus new marriage;

· Talk Show with Spike Feresten (FOX), fast-paced show that throws together late-night formats with audience-involved comedy sketches;

· Help Me Help You from ABC turns group therapy on its head with Ted Danson (Cheers) as a self-help guru;

· 10 Items or Less chronicles the adventures of a young man who inherits his father’s grocery store;

· Big Day, from ABC/Sony, is a wedding-themed 24 wherein the series breaks a single day into 22 individual episodes;

· My Boys (Sony) follows a female sports writer trying to break out her ‘one of the boys’ persona;

· In Case of Emergency from ABC pits old high school pals who run into each other under embarrassing circumstances. The series is directed by Jon Favreau (Elf, Swingers) and stars Jonathan Silverman

Slated for midseason is the half-hour The Winner, a FOX show about a late-blooming millionaire in Buffalo.

Returning to the net are: House, Prison Break, Survivor, 24, American Dad, Family Guy, King Of The Hill, The Simpsons, The War At Home, My Name Is Earl, The Office, Las Vegas, The Apprentice, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Deal Or No Deal, Two-And-A-Half Men, Ncis, Biggest Loser, Boston Legal, The New Adventures Of Old Christine and How I Met Your Mother.