TORONTO – The top-rated broadcaster's splashy, star-driven upfront presentation to ad buyers on Thursday at the Sony Centre in Toronto, featuring stars from DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham and Marvel's Agent Carter, was a tour-de-force in messaging.
Staged with big screen visuals and pyrotechnics, newly-installed Bell Media president Mary Ann Turcke talked about a push for data-driven TV commercials, and Perry Macdonald, senior vice president of CTV sales, told invited agencies and clients his network had the hit shows and ratings to earn media dollars quite possibly headed elsewhere in a fast-changing digital landscape.
"We deliver more and we deliver better," compared to other platforms, Macdonald told agencies and brand marketers kicking the tires of Bell Media's suite of TV assets.
To back that claim, Phil King, president – CTV, sports, and entertainment programming, featured a slew of sizzle reels of CTV and specialty channel hits and a stage-full of Hollywood and Canadian stars in the hope such extravagance will have ripple effects during the current Upfront sales season.
"Last season, CTV delivered six of the top six most-watched new programs. Six-out-of-six. That really is unbelievable… And five of those six shows went on to become top-ten shows. That's never happened before," he told the Sony Centre audience.
CTV's big, splashy show was in marked contrast to rivals Rogers Media and Shaw Media each of which eschewed a traditional giant upfront pitch and party for advertisers in favour of more intimate affairs with agencies and clients.
It was the same on the star-front, with Rogers Media and Shaw Media bringing only a handful of Hollywood stars to their Upfronts this week. By contrast, Los Angeles talent in town tout new shows for CTV included Blindspot's Jaimie Alexander (pictured below), Code Black's Bonnie Somerville and Benjamin Hollingsworth, D.C.'s Legends of Tomorrow's Victor Garber, Ciara Renee and Caity Lotz, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Nick Blood and Gotham's Camren Bicondova and David Mazouz.
All of which left King and his content team at Bell Media in a strong position this week, with 15 of the top-20 shows on Canadian TV and number one among adults 25 to 54 and the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49 demographic.
"Supergirl could be reasonable," a dismissive King
told Cartt.ca earlier in the day after Shaw Media picked up CBS' take on the DC Comics character to target millennial viewers on Monday nights at 8 p.m., opposite a returning Gotham on CTV. "Let the Batman vs. Superman stories begin," King insisted.
"There's nothing on City that gets in our way, although I do say I like Scorpion and I wish we had it. But Blindspot will beat it quite handily.” – Phil King, Bell Media
Bell Media's content boss also saw nothing on Rogers Media's 2015-16 primetime schedule to worry him.
"There's nothing on City that gets in our way, although I do say I like Scorpion and I wish we had it. But Blindspot will beat it quite handily," King said of the Jaimie Alexander-starring NBC action thriller from Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash) to air on CTV at 9 p.m. on Mondays against Scorpion, a dramatic thriller about a group of brilliant misfits on City in the same time slot.
Mike Cosentino, senior vice-president, programming, CTV networks and CraveTV, said his rivals picking up high-octane superhero and sci-fi dramas only had them following CTV's lead. "They're getting on the plan," he said, pointing to earlier-acquired action dramas from the CW superhero universe like The Flash, Arrow and the new 
spin-off DC's Legends of Tomorrow.
"You can speak to big data, but the more compelling point is big programs and big audiences. The viewers are here. The millennial viewers are at home on CTV," he boasted.
That confidence extends to CTV creating drama over its Thursday night lineup this Fall by scheduling the homegrown Saving Hope at 9 p.m., against NBC's relocated Blacklist on Global Television and the weekly NFL game and the Mom and Life in Pieces comedies on City.
Cosentino said Saving Hope, from Ilana Frank's IFC Films and Entertainment One, earned that competitive time slot, with a lead-in from ABC's The Goldbergs and a lead-out from ABC's How to Get Away With Murder from Shonda Rhimes, because it had an impressive average audience of around 1.4 million Canadians last season.
"Discoverability is a big challenge and being on CTV means being promoted on the biggest shows," he argued. "We can launch better than anyone because we have the biggest shows to launch off of. Coming from that position of strength is something to recognize," Cosentino added.
