Wednesday in Toronto, Corus’ co-CEO Troy Reeb had a message for advertisers:
Stay Home.
As in Home, the new brand name for what will no longer be Corus’ HGTV Canada. Come January 1st, HGTV will migrate to another channel number as part of the Rogers Sports & Entertainment family of specialty channels. It is all part of a deal that saw Rogers swoop in and snatch several well-known Warner Bros. Discovery cable brands, including Food Network, HGTV and OWN, away from Corus. (Rogers made a similar aggressive move with NBCUniversal in prying Bravo loose from Bell.)
The move sent shock waves through an already nervous media industry and seemed to push Corus – the “independent” in that they are not part of a larger telecommunications company – into a tough spot financially.
That David vs Goliath comparison was put in sharp focus this same Wednesday morning when Rogers dropped the news that they were making a $4.7 billion dollar offer to, pending approval, buy Bell Media’s substantial share of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. That’s the company that owns Toronto sports teams the Leafs, Raptors, Argos and Toronto FC.
Reeb, however, who became co-CEO (along with John Gossling) of Corus 12 weeks ago with the departure of Doug Murphy, had one job Wednesday. Show that Corus meant to stay in business.
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Not everyone in the room had faith. Corus’ stock price has tanked and subsequent financial headlines suggested the road ahead would be very challenging. Being an independent in this sector in 2024 does not have the same brash, outsider-y, cowboy-ish bravado of when the Aspers came riding in from Winnipeg in the ’80s and ‘90s.
“There’s no doubt we’ve been working through some challenges over the last little while,” Reeb told a large gathering of ad agency reps as well as content producers and talent Wednesday at Corus’ waterfront headquarters in Toronto. “We have absolutely felt the love and support from the advertising community.”
Before that gathering turned their attention to the free bar, tasty lamb lollipops and other hors d’oeuvres, reels from the new brands Home and Flavour were shown on a big screen. They were fun and effective, showing a robust mix of Canadian and foreign content post-the January 1st rebranding date for consumers subscribing to these channels. On the screen were the tentpole stars and shows viewers have come to love: Bryan and Sarah Baeumler and Scott McGillivrey. Also shown were clips from two shows viewers are already familiar with featuring Pamela Anderson (one for each channel): Pamela’s Garden of Eden and Pamela’s Cooking with Love.
Jessica Alba and Carla Hall will be joining Corus’s Flavour, the channel replacing the departing brand name Food Canada. Foodie superstar Gordon Ramsay is bringing two shows under the Corus tent. Even Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives will continue to be shown on Flavour.
New offerings go into production in the coming months, including a new lifestyle series from Kortney Wilson and Kenny Brain called Life is Messy, plus a competition series called The Big Burger Battle hosted by Run the Burbs comedian Andrew Phung.
Trust me: Phung knows burgers.
“If you like an Old School kind of burger, there’s Square Boy on the Danforth,” he told me. If you want the new, hip, trendy burger, Maddie Addies.”
Phung, who has a young family, is not above a Wendy’s Double Patty burger. At home on the grill, one of his kids is pretty sure he just invented the cheeseburger.
After wearing a lot of hats during three seasons on Burbs, Phung is also happy to “be the talent” as host of The Big Burger Battle.
Announcing 460 premiere hours for the first half of 2025 is an impressive commitment for Corus at this crossroad. Reeb emphasised to his ad partners that his company has been leaders in the lifestyle TV business for 26 years. He also suggested that new deals made with American providers such as Roku will give Corus more scheduling flexibility than they had with former providers such as Discovery.
As for the new brand names Home and Flavour, Reeb admitted that Corus’ legal department had to work overtime vetting those monikers before Wednesday’s announcements. A few dollars may have changed hands, he admitted, when it came to prying their use away from others who had previously registered the brands.
And, yes, he was determined to insist on the Canadian spelling when it came to Flavour.
“We put the ‘U’ in Flavour,” says Reeb – whose next task is to put the solve in solvency.
