This year’s CBC Upfront presentation was a good one for my SAAB. The Swedish Princess never left the driveway as I stayed home and watched the event on my computer screen. The experience turned out to be longer than the drive in would have been from Orangeville, and the view was just as familiar.
CBC really doesn’t have much new lined up for the fall of 2025. Starting in February of 2026 they’ll be carrying the Winter Olympic Games from Italy, the public broadcaster’s 25th Olympics. Wednesday’s live event took place in Studio 40 from the network’s headquarters in Toronto, which would have gone condo by now if Donald Trump hadn’t opened his big yap about Canada becoming the 51st State. If folks remember Pierre Poilievre, the absent opposition leader vowed to ditch the CBC’s English Language TV appropriation. Trump’s tariff tirades helped Mark Carney vault the Liberals back into power.
Still, a change in federal leadership was evident. The usual 45-minute lands treaty declaration was reduced to a 20-second screen grab. Good thing too; this show went way over.
The show started very casually. Two roadies from CBC radio took the stage first. Wait, that was Q host Tom Powers and Commotion host Elamin Abdelmahmoud. The stage was still luke warm from the Canadian Screen Awards a few nights earlier. CBC was nominated for 268 awards and won 42 – numbers that, for the love of God, should indicate that perhaps there are just way, way too many Canadian Screen Awards.
After a sizzle reel, CBC’s “Pope of Content” Executive Vice-President Barb Williams took the stage. The former Global exec has seen a lot of upfronts, the past six at CBC. Unlike the opening act, Barb dressed appropriately for the occasion, in Canada’s colours, red and white. She has the right to wave the flag when you compare CBC’s Canadian content to the Yankee doodle dandies in full rotation in primetime on Canada’s three private networks.
On the other hand, as Corus’s co-CEO (yikes! Now ex-CEO) Troy Reeb told The Canadian Press earlier this week, the only way to sustain a broadcast business in Canada full of homegrown original content is for the government to subsidize said network each year to the tune of $1.3 billion. Gotta admit, I’m going to miss Reeb’s unchecked candor.
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Barb acknowledged early that there was little shinny and new in Wednesday’s CBC presentation. This one was about returning shows that audiences had found “right out of the gate.” This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Son of a Critch were Canada’s two most-watched Canadian comedies, she declared. Rookie shows North of North and Small Achievable Goals had made an impression.
The stars of both those shows took the stage later for short interview segments. Neither were big hits in live ratings reports, but Barb and others referred ad buyers to the big jump in digital views the network enjoyed last season on CBC Gem and other platforms. Last season, for example, CBC shows cracked the one billion views mark on YouTube – a 66 per cent year-to-year increase. I’m guessing half of that was Mark Critch as Donald Trump, a breakout bullseye for the comedian.
That big map of Canada was projected on screens once again to show that CBC was repping more regions than ever. Heartland, Wild Cards and Allegiance are all shot out west. Murdoch Mysteries has passed the 300 episodes threshold.
Barb did say CBC had “a number of brand-new dramas but we’re not quite ready to say anything about them yet.” Some orders probably had to wait until the dust settled after the election. They will likely be saved until early in 2026.
Andrew Chang took the stage next to wave the CBC News flag. Adrienne Arseneau was busy reporting on those Manitoba wildfires. He noted that election day, April 28, CBC topped three and a half million hours on digital platforms – the network’s biggest day ever.
A half hour into the remote feed, Canada Live host Heather Hiscox took a bow. After 20 years of daily, four-hour conversations with Canadians in the morning, she is saying goodbye to the network this coming November.
Hiscox is so known for gathering facts and being ready for her broadcasts, colleagues, she joked, call her “Preparation H.” That’s what I call a moving tribute. A reel devoted to her many hairstyles was shown.
Next up Abdelmahmoud returned to interview North of North’s Anna Lambe. Hers is the most-watched new series on CBC Gem and streams now on Netflix. It was an interesting conversation – North of North, for example, shoots in an Iqaluit curling rink-turned-studio – but a series of other interviews followed and made for a long morning. My own unscientific theory is that your network loses one percent of the Canadian TV audience for every 30 minutes your upfront runs past the one-hour mark. The CBC remote experience certainly seemed less zippy that the 40-minute rocket ride presented the day before by Rogers.
Some other acts could have been cut. CBC has a documentary series about Cirque du Soliel. A football freestyler was brought out to kick things around. At least there were no plate spinners.
Mark Critch was next. Son of a Critch, inexplicably shut out at the recent Canadian Screen Awards, returns for a fifth season in January. He also talked with Powers about 22 Minutes and that season-ending sketch with Mark Carney at a Tim Hortons in Hamilton. Carney was set to reject the sweets, but Critch gave him some sage advice – eat the damn doughnut.
Jennifer Whelan and Meredith McNeill took the stage to talk Small Achievable Goals. MacNeill’s fancy leggings were more impressive than what the Cirque soccer dude was sporting earlier.
We learned about a couple of interesting documentaries. “Running Smoke” is about indigenous NASCAR driver Derek White who got caught up in a cocaine and contraband tobacco bust. “The Assembly” brings Canadian celebs such as Jann Arden, Allan Hawco, Howie Mandel, and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and has them quizzed by a group of 30 atypical interviewers, all on the autism spectrum. It looks very moving, and I thought CBC buried the lead by placing this so late in their long upfront event.
Things went on and on. Dragon’s Den is back for a 20th season with one of the Property brothers. There are documentaries about Tupperware and dog rescuers. A singer came on and did “I’m Like a Bird.” I kept waiting for Ed McMahon to come out and announce a new total on the big tote board.
Barb came out at the two hour and 15-minute mark and with “Go Oilers” the thing was done.
