CBC and BBC Northern Ireland last week announced the greenlight of a new original comedy series, Committed, starring Dustin Milligan (Schitt’s Creek, Hot Frosty) and Diona Doherty (Derry Girls, Blue Lights).
Coproduced by Toronto-based Cameron Pictures and Belfast-based Fabel Productions, Committed is a 10-episode, half-hour romantic comedy that “follows Canadian Peter Hooley (Milligan), a recently divorced accountant, who falls head over heels for Northern Ireland woman Julie Johnston (Doherty) after a whirlwind weekend in Toronto, and crosses the Atlantic to declare his love—only to discover he’s landed in an old-fashioned and eccentric rural Northern Ireland village that’s nothing like…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC ruled Thursday that Rogers does not need to continue putting money into the Shaw Rocket Fund past August 2025, rejecting the fund’s request to extend that date by at least a year.
The Certified Independent Product Fund (CIPF), which bankrolls children’s programming, had asked the CRTC last summer to stop Rogers from pulling the plug on the funding, which was a condition of its acquisition of Shaw. The fund argued that the CRTC’s 2023 renewal of Rogers’s licence to August 31, 2026 is just an extension of the current licence term, which means…
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CBC on Tuesday announced a new spring/summer lineup of original podcasts, including new investigations in its Uncover and Understood series as well as a light-hearted debate podcast hosted by musician Donovan Woods and Tom Power of CBC Radio’s Q.
Launching April 20, The Big Five (10 episodes) features Woods and Power sitting down with a celebrity guest to debate the “big” five of any given category, like ways to cook a potato, types of hats, guys named Paul, slang terms for “butt”, cartoon dogs, and so on. Guests this season include musician and writer Vivek Shraya, filmmaker Jordan Canning, singer-songwriter William…
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By Connie Thiessen
The National Film Board (NFB) and CBC/Radio-Canada have announced a new era of collaboration with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will see the two public media institutions move away from project-by-project cooperation toward a more coordinated, long-term approach.
The agreement establishes a framework for “sustained collaboration” across documentary production and programming, archives, new technologies, educational offerings and audience engagement, “identifying new ways of better working together in a rapidly evolving cultural landscape.”
The MOU includes exploring opportunities for CBC/Radio-Canada to offer more NFB documentaries on its channels and platforms, including the potential for new co-productions;…
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Veteran CBC reporter and sports broadcaster Colleen Jones will be posthumously inducted into the CBC News Hall of Fame this spring, CBC News announced Tuesday.
A world champion curler, Jones died in November at the age of 65 after a three-year battle with cancer.
With a career at CBC spanning nearly 40 years across news and sports, Jones was known for her coverage of her home province of Nova Scotia and the sport of curling. She retired from CBC in April 2023.
“Colleen brought the same boundless energy, enthusiasm, discipline and…
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Damian Abraham, frontman of Canadian punk band F*cked Up, and International Digital Emmy-winning producer Zach Feldberg have partnered to launch Cut & Paste Pictures.
The Toronto-based production company is entering the market with a slate of projects in development, spanning scripted and unscripted formats, and a feature documentary currently in production.
“Focusing on bold, voice-driven projects rooted in music, counterculture, and outsider perspectives, Cut & Paste champions unconventional stories with wide audience appeal,” reads a Wednesday press release announcing the prodco’s launch.
The creative partnership between Abraham and Feldberg combines their backgrounds…
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CBC News announced Wednesday an expansion of local news services in Hamilton, Ontario, with a live audio weekday morning show and a weekly podcast to be added to the existing digital news offered by the station.
CBC News said in a press release it will hire up to six new roles to support the added services, which are scheduled to launch later this year.
“This is an exciting and important investment in Hamilton,” said Brodie Fenlon, general manager and editor-in-chief of CBC News, in a statement. “We will double-down on CBC service to…
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CBC announced Tuesday the two-part documentary Speechless from Emmy Award-winning Canadian filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock will air commercial-free on CBC TV on April 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT), and will also be available to stream on CBC Gem as of 9 a.m. ET on April 14.
A CBC and Documentary Channel original produced in association with BBC, Speechless (two episodes x 90 minutes) will also premiere in the U.K. on BBC Storyville and iPlayer.
“Filmed on campuses in the U.S. and the U.K., the documentary brings together years of investigation and on-the-ground filmmaking to…
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Corus Entertainment announced Tuesday it has received an order from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to proceed with its previously announced recapitalization transaction, which is designed to reduce the media company’s third-party debt and other liabilities by more than $500 million.
Other expected benefits of the recapitalization include decreasing Corus’s initial annual cash interest payments by up to $40 million, as well as extending debt maturity by five years and maintaining continued access to a $125-million secured revolving credit facility.
The court approval for the recapitalization transaction comes after…
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Postmedia Studios, a division of Canadian news media company Postmedia Network Inc., and Elevation Pictures’ Toronto-based production division on Tuesday announced a new strategic partnership to finance, develop and launch select Canadian feature projects.
The collaboration will see Postmedia leverage its national audience reach and data insights to help support the development, production and successful release of films, a Postmedia press release said.
The first project to be advanced through the partnership will be Fire Weather, a feature documentary commissioned by CBC and co-produced by Elevation Pictures and Toronto-based production company Mercury Films. Inspired…
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