On Saturday, Ron MacLean returns to a job he held for 28 years — host of Hockey Night in Canada. The past two NHL seasons, however, were spent in the wilderness; for Hockey Night in Canada, ratings-wise, and –quite literally — for MacLean. We all know what happened. Rogers acquired all national NHL rights for a dozen years
Rogers finally pulled the plug on their doomed digital streaming service shomi. You can read their “We surrender!” release here. The service is set to end Nov. 30. Rogers, which joined with Shaw on the venture just a couple of years ago, expects to incur a loss of $100M to $140M in its third quarter. Shomi how to
Feeling patriotic this Canada Day? A good time then to catch up with a couple of made-in-Canada TV shows. Fact: I visited the sets of both Between and Killjoys several months ago while both were still in production for Season 2. Both return this week; Between on City and Netflix and Killjoys on Space. Both were showcased
The Toronto Star has jumped out front on a story many of us have been keeping an eye on for weeks–George Stroumboulopoulos’ future with Hockey Night in Canada. A few weeks ago when I spoke with Sportsnet president Scott Moore at the Rogers upfront, he seemed to duck around the Strombo question. HNiC’s ratings were
Banff, Alta– The second panel I moderated at Banff was “Broadcasting the 4K Way.” The panelists were Mary Ellen Carlyle, SVP & GM of Dome Productions, Scott Moore, President of Sportsnet and head of all things NHL at Rogers and my cousin Ken MacDonald, GM & VP of Discovery Canada. MacDonald, who I’ve been interviewing
BANFF, Alta.–There should be a law against blogging at Banff. It is just too damn beautiful outside. Everywhere you look is a picture postcard. So let’s run through Monday’s Banff World Media Festival experience as quickly as possible. I moderated two sessions. The first was called, “The Future of Canadian Content” and the Alberta room
Day One of the Upfront Canada Week began Monday in the spacious press room known as the Rogers Centre. Rogers Media made smart use of the ballpark Ted picked up for Uber money. Reporters were escorted into a breakfast nook with a cool view of the baseball field below, where workers were hoisting Ferris wheels,
Took a little back and forth, and credit the CP editors for their patience, but I was able to break this news about Don Cherry off Monday’s Rogers Media upfront in Toronto: he’ll be back next season, at least, on Hockey Night in Canada. Cherry, 82, who signed a two-year contract when Rogers made their