Heading down to the Rogers/City-TV Fall Launch upfront this afternoon at the Canon Theatre in Toronto. With CTV and Global keeping their hands in their pockets for once, Rogers were the big spenders down at the LA screenings this spring, buying 16 hours of imported fare. Guess their business model isn’t broken! Look for the
So I go up to P.R. boss Scott Henderson at Thursdays CTV upfront. Told him he looks terrific, has really slimmed down. Says Henderson: “Everybody’s downsizing.”It’s a great line and does sum up this fire sale of a fall preview time. CTV usually rents the glitziest venue in Toronto for this ad industry wank, throwing
I’ll never forget meeting David Carradine. It was way back in 1987, in the middle of the night.He was guest starring on the CTV police drama Night Heat, which had broken through to a summer tryout on CBS at the time and was importing a few big name stars. Carradine was in his trailer, parked
If you haven’t seen the new CTV/NBC series The Listener, there’s another opportunity tonight at 9 p.m. NBC is running back-to-back episodes.The supernatural drama (executive producer Christina Jennings calls it a “telepathic procedural”) stars Craig Olejnik as a paramedic who can hear people’s thoughts. Ennis Esmer plays his ambulance partner, Lisa Marcos a local detective
Just one year ago, the star of Canwest’s Fall Upfront was KITT, the talking Shelby Mustang at the centre of their flashy NBC import, Knight Rider. Canwest had it freighted to T.O. and parked it right on the stage of the Elgin Theatre. It was comin’ to E!, and it was driving Canwest’s future growth.Course,
Jay Leno took the stage at Casino Rama Tuesday night like he was shot out of a cannon. The man who concluded 17 years as host of The Tonight Show Friday blitzed through an 80-minute act that rocked the sold out, 5000-seat theatre.He joked about cats, Michael Jackson, VCRs, condoms, fat kids, exploding diarrhea, his
CTV released their fall 2009 schedules today and it doesn’t take a “Mentalist” to figure out what the prime directive was:Make it look like we didn’t buy any new U.S. shows for next season.CTV, like Canwest, has bet everything that their “Save Local TV” campaign and “business model is broken” mantra will be enough to
Been a while since I’ve been on CHCH’s Live @ 5:30 with Mark Hebscher and Donna Skelly. Back today talking about cigarette smoking on TV and in films and how a lobby group in the U.S. wants all films with cigarette smoke to be branded with the dreaded “R” rating.Seems some moms and dads are