The theme to the Corus Entertainment 2025 Upfront Monday in Toronto was “Next Level.” Coincidentally, that is also where the banks have downgraded their financial status.
Since there is no Jimmy Kimmel at the Canadian upfronts, I’m forced to make the mean jokes at the network’s expense. The elephant in the room, of course, is the humongous debt load Corus is trying to finangle.
But nevermind. Damned if Corus isn’t forging ahead with some wind in their sails. Debt load aside, they’ve had a very good year, with their flagship broadcast network, Global, the only Canadian linear platform to have shown audience growth in the past 12 months.*
Corus does have the advantage of data to back up their claim. (Most numbers on their release cite Numeris PPM Data based on A25-54 AMA’s.) Co-CEO Troy Reeb told attendees that core primetime viewership (which they define as between 8 pm and 11 pm) is up 26 per cent year over year. Thank you Matlock, the season’s best performing freshman. Local news, he added was up eight per cent this past season across all platforms. He also claims Global is home to the nations No. 1 national newscast, the one Dawna Friesen anchors.
If you look just at the core primetime hours, Global beat CTV head-to-head last fall, winter and spring — exluding NFL broadcasts, which includes the massive annual Super Bowl take. That is a bit like saying that The Leafs won the Stanley Cup if you look past the Florida Panthers, except — and this is the eye opener for me — CTV used to boast they had 18 or 19 of Canada’s 20 most-watched primetime shows (Survivor being the only consistent import winner that got away). Now Global is saying that, this past season, they had 12 of the Top-10 in Canada. That is different.
They are winning in other day parts as well. One of Global’s biggest success stories is their Morning Show, up 17 per cent year-to-year and drawing close to twice the national audience as CTV’s Your Morning and more than double the viewership of Rogers’ Breakfast Television. Ad buyers were invited to tour the set.
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They also claim to have this past season’s No. 1 comedy, Ghosts, No. 1 late night show, Saturday Night Live, and No. 1 reality show, Survivor (heading into 49th and 50th seasons). Among the other Top-20 ranked shows on Global next season will be 9-1-1, FBI, Matlock, NCIS, NCIS: Origins and Elsbeth.
Kudos to Corus’ PR team for not using the dreaded, “most buzzed about” phrase in hyping their new American acquisitions. They include the workplace comedy DMV (set at a Department of Motor Vehicles office and featuring Harriet Dyer and Tim Meadows); Dick Wolf’s latest three letter drama CIA starring Tom Ellis (who was at the upfront); the Fire Country spinoff Sheriff Country (bet they have fires there as well); a singing competition series The Road from Taylor Sheridan, Blake Shelton and Keith Urban; and another drama, Y: Marshals, which will have to change its title before all the reviews come out with the headline, “Why Marshals? Why? Y?”
A parade of Canadian talent, 100 individuals including Morning Show hosts Carolyn Mackenzie and Jeff McArthur, Corus radios’ Alan Cross and veteran Global “Making a Difference” journalist Susan Hay, marched onto a gangplank high above the large event space facing Lake Ontario. Nice symbolic gesture, but almost everything else at Corus’ upfront, including the boxed water available to those in attendance, was American.
There was a taped message on the big screen from one prominent American, Stephen Colbert. His CBS Late Show is generally the most watched live American late night talk show in Canada, edging Citytv’s simulcast of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“Hello there, Corus upfront,” said Colbert. “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I made my last contractually required video for you.”
Reeb and Jennifer Abrams, SVP, Programming and Multiplatform, introduced other talent flown in to meet the Canadian ad community. First, though, they brought forward the Canadians, home builder experts Scott McGillivray and Bryan and Sarah Baeumier, the later hosting the new series Building Baeumier on Home Network.
Corus claims they have the most-watched show on Specialty in Canada — History’s Curse of Oak Island, which is heading into Season 13 (and they still haven’t found the pirate treasure). New to Showcase next season is The Paper, an Office-like mocumentary from Greg Daniels and Michael Koman. It is set in a bustling newspaper newsroom, so it must be a period piece! Simu Liu is among the stars of the import spy drama The Copenhagen Test. also coming to Showcase.
Corus hit the ground running with the launch of their new specialty channels Flavour and Home last January. These two rookies have soared past HGTV and Food Network in viewership so far in 2025. Rogers thought they had made a smart and sneaky deal with those cable networks American parent companies, then Trump started with the “51st State” blathering and suddenly “Made in Canada” was the sticker slapped on everything from milk to TV channels.
Corus has slapped it on Murder in a Small Town, a drama shot in BC and starring Canadians Kristen Kreuk and Rossif Sutherland. It is kinda Can-Am at best, being also a Fox Network series. Buried further down the press releases is that Family Law is getting another summer window.
Global’s big Canadian scripted news is the launch of Private Eyes West Coast. Returning series stars Jason Priestley and Cindy Sampson were at the upfront in Toronto Monday and head to Vancouver this week to start production. Priestley will also direct several episodes of the series which will be shot over the summer. Private Eyes had a very successful five-season run and was peaking at over a million viewers a week when Global inexplicably cancelled it five seasons ago. It is a slick caper series with two very likeable leads and should pick up right where it left off. Sampson made good use of her time off; she and her husband welcomed their first child, a daughter.
Among the American stars at the Corus upfront Monday was Jason Ritter, who is back for Season Two of Matlock starring Oscar winner Kathy Bates. Matlock was the top returning rookie series in both the US and Canada. Ritter, who has paid his dues with great performances in a few short lived series, is so thrilled to be part of this winner he is dancing up a storm on TikTok. Check him out, he even got Bates to dance with him on stage recently at the CBS Upfront. Look for him to be my guest soon on brioux.tv: the podcast.
- *That’s the advantage of going first; Corus gets to tell the ad community they were the only Canadian network to show growth year-to-year before the other three major English Canadian media companies declare they were the only company to do it. Canadian Upfront week comtinues Tuesday (Rogers), Wednesday (CBC) and Thursday (Bell).
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“Rogers thought they had made a smart and sneaky deal with those cable networks American parent companies, then Trump started with the “51st State” blathering and suddenly “Made in Canada” was the sticker slapped on everything from milk to TV channels.”
I kind of doubt that really impacted the results. If Trump’s trolling hurt any of the broadcasters, it would’ve been Bell who had the gigabrain idea of flipping Discovery into … USA. Even during a less tumultuous time between Canada and the U.S., that seemed like a very questionable decision given that cable channel is moribund in its home market. Other than sports/wrestling, the most notable content on USA are Canadian shows or things included in Bell’s other programming deals (they’re currently airing Duster – a WBD production for MAX). There doesn’t seem to be much value in what little NBC Universal’s producing for that channel.
It’s obvious the new Rogers channels are struggling because of their limited distribution. Telus is the only third-party operator to have picked them up so far and that is a fairly recent development. I suspect there’s a reason why Corus neglected to mention how Slice is doing vs. Rogers’ Bravo, which was a more apples-to-apples comparison.