If this podcast sounds a little muffled, blame the upfronts. Fleeing Wednesday’s Shaw press event, I ducked into what I thought was a hotel parking entrance off Yorkville when CHML producer Jacob Smith reached me on mobile. A burly security dude chased my back into construction hell just as Scott Thompson opened with hockey talk. Scott asks
At 8:01 Tuesday morning, Bell Media sent an email with the following headline: “TSN once again ranks as Canada’s #1 specialty channel in all key demos” At 8:08 a.m., Rogers–who hosted today’s Canadian network upfront in Toronto–blasted out their message: “Sportsnet is Now the #1 Sports Brand on TV in Canada” So who is telling the
They may not have national NHL rights, but TSN still can lay claim to hockey bragging rights. The Bell-owned sports specialty network scored an astounding 5,885,000 overnight, estimated viewers with Monday night’s Gold Medal World Junior Championship game between Canada and Russia. It didn’t hurt that what looked like a blowout turned into a nail biter.
CTV, as usual, was quick to rush out a release declaring they have all the hot new shows so far this season. This after one week of total ratings. So, yes, Gotham opened huge as expected (3,375,000 Live + 7 viewers, gaining a million over the overnight tally) with Thursday night Shonda Rhimes drama How to
Is there such a thing as a regular season anymore? TV has become such a 52-week business. Still, with the May sweeps winding down, time to check in on the ever-changing Canadian TV landscape. Here’s where things stood the week of May 12-18, viewers 2+, according to overnight estimates. MONDAY MAY 12 CBC’s last Stanley
Last week, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission released their annual financial report on Pay and Specialty services. Among the things that jumped out: The Comedy Network, which could be re-named the Match Game network ’cause that’s the only thing on there whenever I look, earned a pre-tax profit of $31.3M on revenues of $60.8M in
Who’s afraid of the big bad World Junior Hockey Championship Deathstar? Not rival programmers this year. The annual junior shinny tourney used to outdraw Grey Cups and Super Bowls back when Canada was kicking ass. In January of 2010, Canada lost in the finals but an overnight, estimated 5,625,000 watched on TSN. The next year,
How odd is it that, after all the dust settles on Rogers’ $5.2B NHL deal, the guys who still own the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song are TSN.They’ve held the rights for five years, after CBC–which made it part of their Saturday hockey broadcasts for 40 years–refused to meet the songwriter’s