Canadian media companies lobbied hard, back in the “Let’s Talk TV” days, for the removal of genre protection when it came to defining specialty channels. Everybody felt boxed in. Too much time spent justifying genre walls at CRTC hearings. Free market or bust.
Well, be careful what you ask for. One of the drawbacks of the removal of genre protection was that it took away one of the main leverage points when it came to negotiating licensing rights in Canada. All of a sudden, U.S. media companies could take their brands to the highest bidder — and that’s not good for companies without deep telecommunications pockets such as Corus.
One who saw these brand raids coming and is surprised it took this long is Daniel Eves, former SVP Networks at Corus Entertainment. Eves, who stepped down from that role in 2024 after a career dating back to similar posts at Alliance and Canwest, is the special guest this week at brioux.tv. Here, with no skin in the game, he offers his expert opinion as somebody who was for many years at the table negotiating licensing rights with American suppliers. He saw how the landscape kept changing, how prices kept rising and how ratings on specialty, especially with the rise in streaming, kept falling.
Eves offers a great deal of valuable insight into the ever-changing, and sometimes precarious, world of Canadian television. Get a firm grip on your remotes, helmets on and lock in for a lesson in History, Food, and other specialty brands.
To listen to this podcast episode, simply follow the link by clicking on the white arrow in the blue dot above.
