Geez, summer, eh? If you’re not streaming Prime Video’s new Canadian comedy original The Lake you’ve probably been outdoors and in one. If you’re still watching conventional network television, however, you’ve been watching two things: news and sports. CTV, for example, had three newscasts in the Top 10 June 6 to 12 led by top-rated
The third and final episode of our three-part, post-upfront series, “Battle of the Network Stars: Executive Division,” features CBC Executive Vice President Barbara Williams. Williams, a respected industry veteran who called the shots at Global prior to joining CBC, oversees all of the public broadcaster’s English language programming services. This episode finds her just back
This week, right after my birthday, I received an extraordinary gift: a collection of one-of-a-kind Russian nesting or tea dolls depicting the iconic animated ad mascots of mid-20th century television. Hand-painted on seven wooden doll forms were 14 figures: the largest had renderings of the Star-Kist tuna mascot “Charley,” the Jolly Green Giant and Little
Part II in our series, “Battle of the Network Stars: Executives Division,” features Daniel Eves, Senior Vice President, Broadcast Networks, Corus Entertainment. Eves helped guide the network to a breakthrough last fall when Global became Canada’s No. 1 draw in Core Prime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.). While CTV still won the full, Fall/Winter/Spring season,
[UPDATED June 21 after watching all eight episodes.] The Lake is where many Canadians head each summer, desperate to find relief from the heat. This series, which starts streaming Friday, also offers comedy — even more of a relief these days. Here’s the biggest relief: if you’re looking for something original, different yet familiar and
The the arrival of June and the end of the official TV season, ratings take their annual summer nap. With big imports such as Survivor and The Good Doctor resting until Fall, only three shows in English Canada cracked the million viewer mark the week of May 30-June 5 according to Numeris. Number One was
Numeris, Canada’s broadcast measurement authority, last week sent out a correction to its Top-30 list of most-watched shows across Canada for May 23 to 29. The final results vary quite a bit from what was originally reported. Survivor remains in the top spot for its season finale, but the total is more than a quarter
Dusty Saunders, who passed away early this week at 90, started working as a copy boy at the Rocky Mountain News 1953. He worked for the Denver newspaper, which doesn’t exist anymore, for 56 years. Almost all of that time he wrote about television. He started before that was really a beat; he had to
Ronnie Hawkins, simply known as “The Hawk” when he tore up the Yonge Street strip in the late ’50s, early ’60s, died May 29 at 87. Remembered for his full-throated cover of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love,” the Arkansas-born singer-songwriter jammed with rock and roll’s earliest pioneers. They included Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins,
To have not done a podcast with Kenneth Welsh — what an opportunity lost. Welsh died May 5 at 80 years of age. He burned so bright for so many years that 80 seems both impossibly long and way too short for such an incendiary life. You could not cover television in Canada throughout the
David Birney, who passed away April 27 in Santa Monica, Calif., is best known to TV audiences for two one-season roles — and one unhappy marriage. His first starring TV role was as Bernie Steinberg, a Jewish cabdriver with writing ambitions married to Irish Catholic schoolteacher Bridget Fitzgerald on the CBS sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie
Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner wrote a sterling exit for Robert Morse. Towards the end of the series’ run, Morse’s character — ad firm patriarch Bertram Cooper – dies at home shortly after witnessing the best ad line ever uttered on television: Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for
“People used to describe us as pot smoking hippies on welfare.” That was Paul Pope, the dean of Newfoundland TV and film production, describing his early days in an industry he helped create. I knew him for one day, but it was memorable, and he told me the secret to making Canadian television. That day