LONDON and TORONTO — Warner Bros. International Television Production (WBITVP) and Toronto-based LoCo Motion Pictures today announced WBITVP has acquired the global distribution rights (excluding Canada) to How to Buy a Baby, an International Emmy-nominated CBC digital original series.
Created by Wendy Litner, How to Buy a Baby is a dark comedy drama that follows a couple who are struggling to conceive a baby.
“The series provides a voyeuristic view of a marriage under pressure and shows just how much suffering a couple will endure for a bundle of joy. Deeply moving and awkwardly hilarious, How to Buy a Baby proves…
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TORONTO — CBC today announced its podcast lineup for spring 2021 will include two new original series — Life Jolt and A Death in Cryptoland, launching April 27 and May 25, respectively.
Life Jolt, prison slang for a life sentence, provides a powerful look at the realities of life inside a women’s prison. For this nine-episode series, the production team gained unprecedented access to Grand Valley Institution for Women, a federal penitentiary in Kitchener, Ont. Individual women’s stories explore a wide range of issues including parenting behind bars, segregation, the over-representation of Indigenous women, addiction, trauma and the many…
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TORONTO — The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) announced today the two recipients of this year’s CJF-CBC Indigenous Journalism Fellowships.
Riley Yesno and Shayla Sayer-Brabant (pictured above, left to right) are two early-career Indigenous journalists who will be hosted for one month (remotely) at the CBC News Indigenous Unit in Winnipeg, as they explore Indigenous issues of interest.
Yesno is an Anishinaabe woman from Eabametoong First Nation who grew up in Thunder Bay, Ont., and she is graduating this year from the University of Toronto with a double major in Indigenous studies and political science. She plans to explore the challenges…
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TORONTO – The first round of casting for CBC and BET+ original series The Porter (8 episodes x 60 minutes each) has been confirmed with (above, left to right) Aml Ameen (I May Destroy You, Yardie), Mouna Traoré (Self Made, The Umbrella Academy), and Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Star Trek: Discovery, Pretty Hard Cases) to co-star in the 1920s drama.
With the series set to start production in Winnipeg, Manitoba later this spring, more additions to the cast will be announced in the coming weeks.
Inspired by real events and set in the roar of the 1920s, The Porter (which is a…
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OTTAWA — Among Canadian children, podcasts are not as popular as streaming music services or audio content on YouTube with about 11% of kids aged 2-17 years old listening to podcast content, according to CBC/Radio-Canada’s Media Technology Monitor (MTM) in its latest MTM JR report.
Generally speaking, the report finds teens and anglophones are more likely to listen to podcasts.
According to the report, however, kids who listen to podcasts tend to do so frequently. Three-quarters of kids who listen to podcast content do so at least once a week, and nearly a quarter listen to podcasts daily, says the report….
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OTTAWA — With a federal election anticipated soon, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting today launched a new campaign to promote Canadian culture and media, drawing on the support of several Canadian performers to amplify the organization’s message.
The new “I Am Canadian Content” campaign is designed to mobilize thousands of voters who care about Canadian content and will target 15 “swing ridings” across Canada, says Friends’ press release. Update: The organization declined to name the ridings when we contacted them.
“This truly is a milestone election for Canadian culture and media,” said Daniel Bernhard, executive director for Friends, in the release. “We…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Journalism Foundation’s 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award will go to Thaioronióhte Dan David, the CJF announced today.
He is being recognized for launching the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network’s (APTN) news service, the world’s first national Indigenous-led news network, and for his life-long support of journalism initiatives around the world.
“After centuries in which the stories and reality of Indigenous people were oppressed, we Canadians are now living in a time where those realities and those stories are finally being told,” said selection jury member Hamlin Grange, a veteran broadcast journalist, now principal consultant of DiversiPro, in the…
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TORONTO — CBC and Radio-Canada Distribution, the public broadcaster’s international content licensing arm, today announced its 2021 spring selection of titles, including the award-winning documentary Sing Me A Lullaby (1 x 29 minutes; Golden Nugget Productions) and the now-available Wild Canadian Weather (4 x 52 min, 4K; River Road Films).
Making its announcement ahead of Digital MIPTV (which is running as a five-day virtual conference and market from April 12 to 16), CBC and Radio-Canada Distribution says its new releases will be available in April.
The distributor’s latest scripted selection includes Les Mecs (season one, 10 x 30 min; season two…
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Schitt’s Creek leads with 21 nominations
TORONTO — The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (the Canadian Academy) today announced the nominees for the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards, which are presented in 141 film, television and digital media categories.
Leading both the television and overall Canadian Screen Award nominations is the final season of CBC’s Schitt’s Creek with 21 nominations, followed by CTV’s Cardinal: Until the Night and CBC’s Trickster, which each have 15 nominations.
In the film categories, Jeff Barnaby’s Blood Quantum leads the nominations with 10, while Deepa Mehta’s Funny Boy has nine and Charles Officer’s Akilla’s Escape has eight.
Digital…
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By Catherine Edwards
IN THE LEAD UP TO the Broadcasting Act review, Canada’s five associations representing the community element (two TV, three radio) were dismayed the Creative Canada Policy Framework, the Shattered Mirror, and the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review reports barely mention community broadcasting, despite it being one of the three pillars of the system.
This omission was significant. The community element is uniquely positioned to address the most pressing issues that face our broadcasting system:
the lack of local programming outside major population centres
the lack of programming made by and for minorities, especially Indigenous communities
…
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