A home team rooting interest makes a difference. Saturday’s Game One of the Stanley Cup finals between the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers drew close to 3.5 million viewers in overnight estimates across English Canada. Most viewers watched the game, which Florida won 3-0, on Sportsnet (national and .com), where 1,928,000 viewers were tallied.
In the last of the Canadian television media company upfronts, Rogers delivered their message in a slick, pre-packaged video preview. It was emphasiszed over and over again that Sportsnet is now the “undisputed” No. 1 sports media brand in Canada. Blue Jays host Jamie Campbell proclaimed it. Chief Revenue Officer Al Dark repeated it, “no
It has been a wild week at Corus Entertainment. All was well last Wednesday when the Canadian media company hosted their annual Upfront to advertisers. By Friday, they had to issue a release addressing some shocking news: Warner Bros Discovery was not going to renew their long-standing specialty channel brand relationships with Corus beyond the
Hugh Dillon is a man of many talents, including acting, writing and rocking — the latter done with his band, Headstones. The acting writing and producing skills were put to the test this third season on the Paramount Plus drama Mayor of Kingstown. Dillon and his series co-creator Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone; Tulsa King) made it their
Tonight marks the final appearance of pat Sajak as host of the Wheel of Fortune. The 77-year-old entertainer is leaving after 41 seasons and over 9000 shows. That is a lot of spinning, and Sajak, who has had some helath problems in recent years, has opted to step away from one of the cushiest jobs
First of all, this is how you do a broadcast network upfront headline in 2024: “Star-Studded New Series, Returning Hits, and Live Events to Anchor CTV’s 2024/25 Schedule” Notice the words “buzzworthy” or “overflowing” do not appear anywhere. Kudos to CTV’s PR team for breaking with tradition and toning down the mega-hype. Despite challenging times
Two Canadian broadcast networks host upfront presentations this week. First up: Corus Entertainment, home to Global, specialty channels such as History, HGTV and Food Canada, and W as well as FAST channel Pluto TV, among other platforms. To paraphrase Neil Young, Hype never sleeps. Among the press release headlines: GLOBAL ANNOUNCES 2024/25 BROADCAST SEASON LINEUP
The release Wednesday detailing Corus Entertainment’s Media Upfront for 2024-25 did not have many surprises. There was news of an NCIS spinoff prequel, plus the re-boot of Matlock with Kathy Bates, an imported series that is finally premiering a year after it was originally hyped. There was one glaring omission, however: no new season of