There was a time when “Upfront Week” was covered like the Super Bowl. Now it is more about football than any new comedies, dramas or even reality shows. Today at these big budget presentations, sports leads; dramas and comedies are thrown in as extras. Upfront Week is simply now known as the second week of
The release Wednesday detailing Corus Entertainment’s Media Upfront for 2024-25 did not have many surprises. There was news of an NCIS spinoff prequel, plus the re-boot of Matlock with Kathy Bates, an imported series that is finally premiering a year after it was originally hyped. There was one glaring omission, however: no new season of
ABC/DIsney gve host Jimmy Kimmel far too much ammunition for his annual Upfront eulogy before ad buyers this past week in New York. The star-studded gathering, which featured big names from Disney feature films and their streaming and sports ventures, helped distract from what was otherwise a tough year for media giants. That whole, lets
When it comes to ratings and putting today’s television landscape in context, I always call on the Programming Insider himself, Marc Berman. The New York native has been a friend and colleague since he began attending the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual network press tours in 1999. Back then, Marc was reporting for Mediaweek; before that,
Time was that the US networks would each order seven, eight, ten or twelve new TV shows each season, providing Canadian broadcast show-fetchers a suitcase full of distractibles to defrost the North. Not anymore, Snow Birds. At the recent US upfronts in New York, which were dominated for the first time by streaming platform news,
NBC and Fox added just three new shows to their fall schedules. ABC announced Tuesday that they can do it in two. Upfront Week has become “Name That Tune.” So far, this does not leave content-starved Canadian networks with much to import. Buyers from CTV, Citytv and Global can binge the entire list of new
I wondered if any of the Canadian networks would dare use phrases such as “the most coveted new series of the season” to hype their September schedules. After all, thanks to COVID-19, this is a year with a record low number of American rookies to cherry pick. There weren’t even pilots to watch. It’s like
It is mid-May, 2020. By now, the major US broadcast networks have usually had their blockbuster upfront presentations in New York. Canadian broadcast execs would be flying down to Los Angeles this week to scoop up shows during the annual “Hollywood Screenings.” Not this week and not this year. The COVID-19 pandemic had shut down