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
The last of the Canadian upfronts took place Wednesday in Toronto as Blue Ant took centre stage. The presentation was at the Royal Ontario Museum, a fitting venue given that the Smithsonian Channel is among Blue Ant’s specialty holdings. As is the practice now, the network tipped their new programming initiatives ahead of their presentation.
Earlier this month at the Corus Upfront in Toronto, I had the good fortune to meet and interview two of the stars of The Young and the Restless: Amelia Heinle (Victoria Newman, left) and Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman). Their long-running CBS daytime serial is still one of the most popular shows on Global, ranking
The key graphic from CTV’s 93-minute upfront stage presentation Thursday at the Sony was a variation on a trick chief show fetcher Mike Costentio has used before: a giant chart showing the Top 50 highest-rated single episodes over the past 12 months. It shows that The Big Bang Theory occupied 24 of those 50 spots,