Upfront Week in Canada used to be like walking the midway during the peak years of the Canadian National Exhibition: crowded and sticky. Now, as we emerge from the pandemic, things are slowly shifting back into live, in-person events — or at least evolving into a new hybrid mode of virtual and live. Take Tuesday’s
How slim were the picking at this year’s Hollywood screenings for Canadian broadcast buyers? In advance of their upfront next week in Toronto, CTV announced Thursday that just three new imported US broadcast network programs would be joining their fall 2022-2023 lineup. They are all very Red, White and Blue, with the names of States
CBC could have called Wednesday’s virtual 2022-2023 presentation, This Upfront Has 27 Minutes. Hosted by Andrew Phung from Run the Burbs and Kim’s Convenience (above), the public broadcaster’s sizzle reel was heavy on clips and light on talking heads. Phung promised “thrills and chills” and then gave way to the networks’ Executive Vice President, Barbara
Time was that the US networks would each order seven, eight, ten or twelve new TV shows each season, providing Canadian broadcast show-fetchers a suitcase full of distractibles to defrost the North. Not anymore, Snow Birds. At the recent US upfronts in New York, which were dominated for the first time by streaming platform news,
Last, but certainly not least among Canada’s media companies to hold a virtual upfront to advertisers this week was Bell Media. Their pre-packaged ad reel went “live” around 2 p.m. ET and, while there was one drop out on my screen for a minute or two, it wrapped up at the 3:07 mark. Bell boasted
Global framed their 43 minute, virtual upfront presentation Wednesday with an old-fashioned “let’s put on a show” approach. Food Network Canada host Noah Cappe kidded around as the director of the virtual video, introducing Corus execs such as Doug Murphy, Troy Reeb and Barb McKergow. Hey, it’s been a long year in lockdown. Things opened
The return of Canada’s Got Talent, six hours of Dick Wolf drama imports and the launch of Bachelor in Paradise Canada were all among the headlines at Tuesday’s Rogers Sports and Media virtual Upfront presentation to advertisers. This is a busy week in Canadian television. I had to interrupt my screening of the Rogers Sports
Bell Media’s annual Upfront to advertisers is a week away, but they’ve already released what imports they’ll be featuring on CTV and specialty platforms in 2021-22. Thursday’s announcement includes many of the September starts revealed last month from American broadcasters. In past year’s CTV and other Canadian programming executives would fly to LA and bid