The tributes to Bob Newhart last week were universal in tone. A great comic, great sitcom star, great guy. If there was anyone who had a bad word to say about Newhart, I didn’t hear it or read it. The passing of Newhart brought back memories for those of us lucky enough to remember his
Monday night on CBC viewers were treated to the network’s best drama. The surprise was it occurred on The National. The public broadcaster ran an interview with its CEO, Catherine Tait. The top executive admitted the CBC was, like her hair, deeply in the red. The headline was that, faced with a $125 million budget
On February 22, it was announced that CBC’s The Porter led all shows at the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards with 19 nominations. Two days later came news that this same well-reviewed series about Black Canadian railway workers fighting for job protection in 1921 was cancelled. The series was co-created by and featured veteran actor and
My Television Critics Association pal Alan Sepinwall is the main voice behind the latest list of the Best TV shows of all-time as compiled by Rolling Stone magazine. Before he became Rolling Stone’s TV critic, Alan used to work for the New Jersey Star-Ledger. That’s the same newspaper that was always thrown at the bottom
It takes about ten days to get final broadcast TV numbers. We won’t know until Tuesday, May 29, therefore, how many viewers watched the Toronto Maple Leafs get eliminated Saturday night by the Tampa Bay Lightning in their seven-game opening round series. What we can predict, however, is that the audience was somewhere between three
The folks at Newstalk 1010 in Toronto — CFRB to us oldtimers — called and asked if I would weigh in on an important election matter. The issue they wanted my expert opinion on: which Gilligan’s Island character does each of the Ontario party leaders most closely resemble? Mark Towhey is the host of a
In the last few days, I’ve done ten radio interviews all about one topic: the sudden stock dump at Netflix. The one-day dip of around 35 per cent wiped out an estimated US$50 billion in valuation. It was triggered by a quarterly report that showed that, for the first time in its eleven-year history, subscriptions
A radio station I often get calls from to voice an opinion about television was in touch Friday to ask if I would weigh in on this year’s Oscars. The topic: does anybody care anymore? Then they messaged back saying nevermind, something else had come up. So they don’t even care enough about the Oscars