Canadian media companies lobbied hard, back in the “Let’s Talk TV” days, for the removal of genre protection when it came to defining specialty channels. Everybody felt boxed in. Too much time spent justifying genre walls at CRTC hearings. Free market or bust. Well, be careful what you ask for. One of the drawbacks of
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
Bell Media scored a major win Sunday with their coverage of the Rhianna concert, aka Super Bowl LVII. A live, overnight tally of 7.4 million viewers plus saw the big game on CTV while another 1.744,000 watched on TSN for an english language broadcast and specialty total of roughly 9.15 million viewers. Factor in those
As they say in The UK, Bloody brilliant. There she was, Lisa LaFlamme, a month after her CTV ouster, in the middle of the biggest story in the world, and working it for a rival broadcaster at home. The death of HRH Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8 was sad news for many but the
With Upfronts behind us in Canada, and as we stagger past the pandemic, it is time for a closer look at what the media companies have planned for the 2022-2023 season. The executives who make the major programming decisions agreed to discuss their priorities in a series of brioux.tv podcast episodes I’m calling, “Battle of
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
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
“Is regular network TV programming dead? These four Canadian broadcast execs say no, it’s evolving.” That’s the headline to a feature I wrote appearing in Saturday’s Toronto Star. Read the full story here if you’re a subscriber or, better yet, buy a copy. People have been writing the network TV obit for years. Tina Fey