CBC’s The National sent a videographer all the way out to my house today in search of a comment so it must be news: come the new season, Shaun Majumder will not be back on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Turns out Shaun knew all about his impending departure way back in June as he
CBC is renewing a great deal of its schedule for next season but one of its top draws is departing — the Rick Mercer Report. Mercer and his partner in business and life Gerald Lunz made the decision before this 15th and final season started as I reported here last September. The St. John’s native is only
This season marks 25 years since the launch of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Conceived by Mary Walsh as the follow up to her earlier CBC comedy series CODCO, the weekly news satire has lampooned politicians and Canada in general since Jean Chretien was strangling citizens on Parliament Hill. Halifax-based author Angela Mombourquette – who worked
I first met Rick Mercer 24 years ago. I had a very cool assignment from TV Guide; go to Halifax, spend a week with the cast and crew of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and find out how they go from newspaper headlines to a sketch comedy series in five days. Mercer was a young lad at the
CBC was smart to pull Kim’s Convenience out of Tuesday’s suicide slot. The Toronto Blue Jays exciting Wild Card win was a grand slam home run for Sportsnet, drawing an overnight, estimated 4,017,000 viewers. That makes it the fifth biggest audience in Sportsnet’s history, behind only Jays’ playoff games last fall vs. Kansas City and Texas. Games
What a difference a week makes. Without the Jays in the World Series, Sportsnet’s baseball playoff coverage has fallen well behind the record draws from earlier this month. Tuesday’s Game 1 of the World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets drew an overnight, estimated 776,000 Sportsnet viewers. Game 2 Wednesday
UPDATED: The numbers posted by the victorious Toronto Blue Jays during the ALDS are incredible: an overnight, estimated 4.85 million viewers watched that unforgettable fifth and deciding game on Sportsnet Wednesday night, peaking at a staggering 8.1 million by the final out. That tally followed 4,377,000 viewers for Game 4 vs Texas on Thanksgiving Monday afternoon and
Politicians were called on the (red) carpet last week in Ottawa as This Hour Has 22 Minutes performed for the first time outside of Halifax. I worked the carpet and caught opposition leader Thomas Mulcair and MP Scott Brison among the Parliamentarians who braved the performance. The show was taped before a packed crowd of