TORONTO and LOS ANGELES — Canadian production company marblemedia, in association with Cloudco Entertainment, today announced it has received a series order for a half-hour, live-action comedy, Overlord and the Underwoods, from CBC, Nickelodeon and ITV, in association with BYUtv.
The original, single-camera comedy (20 episodes x 30 minutes) follows the Underwood family, “whose life is turned upside down when their distant cousin, Overlord, the second most-wanted villain in the universe, seeks refuge in their home after being forced into intergalactic witness protection,” reads the press release from marblemedia announcing the series order.
The series is created by BAFTA-winning showrunner Anthony…
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Minister makes draft policy directive public
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – In a somewhat surprising move, the Heritage Ministry on Thursday decided to share the draft policy directive to the CRTC which is to be delivered to the Regulator once the bill aimed at updating the Broadcasting Act is passed.
The draft direction (as in, not final) was supposed to provide more clarity into what the government expects from the CRTC after the passage of C-10, a bill to modernize the Broadcasting Act. But, to be honest, there isn’t much direction in the directive which hasn’t already been examined during our reportage…
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TORONTO — The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) today announced the 10 nominees for the Juno Fan Choice Award, which this year is being presented by Shaw Communications’ Freedom Mobile.
New this year, Freedom Mobile has signed on as a lead sponsor of the 50th Annual Juno Awards and the new presenting partner of the fan choice award. TikTok is also joining as a new lead sponsor and has been named as the official voting platform where fans can vote for their favourite nominee directly in the app. In addition to voting via TikTok, other voting options…
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By Steve Faguy
“THE SYNDICATION OF LOCALIZED programming is nothing new,” says Troy Reeb, executive vice president broadcast networks at Corus Entertainment. “My career began at 17 years old at CFOK in Westlock, Alta., which was a hub station for a network of rural stations across Alberta and northern B.C., where we had this primitive robot — it was huge, it took an entire room and it looked like something out of Space Odyssey. It had reel-to-reel tapes that turned off and on automatically, and clackity cart machines, and it would deliver differentiated programming and weather forecasts and everything else…
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TORONTO — The producers of CBC’s award-winning comedy series Kim’s Convenience announced today the show is coming to an end after five seasons, with the series finale to air on Tuesday, April 13 on CBC TV and CBC Gem.
The decision to end the show comes after co-creators Ins Choi and Kevin White announced they would no longer be working on the series, and despite CBC having previously renewed the show for a fifth and sixth season.
Produced by Thunderbird Entertainment in association with the Soulpepper Theatre Company, Kim’s Convenience is executive produced by Ivan Fecan, Alexandra Raffé, Ins Choi and…
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And is about to make the biggest financial mistake in its history
By Barry Kiefl
THE CRTC, APPOINTED BY THE government to safeguard our broadcasting system, in January completed a three-week long public hearing into how the CBC should be spending its $1.7 billion annual budget over the next decade, where CBC executives told the Commission they want to spend close to $400 million annually on internet services by 2022-23 and effectively reduce budgets of traditional radio/TV to accomplish this.
CBC radio already has a smaller budget than CBC digital.
The Commission’s decision on CBC’s licence renewals will be based mostly on unsourced…
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Real battles will come in front of the CRTC
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – It was likely not done by design, but the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage could not have lined a more diverse set of individuals and groups as it did on its Friday, February 26 meeting to talk about Bill C-10, the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act.
Author and former CBC English services chief Richard Stursberg, Corus Entertainment, SOCAN, Rogers Communications, Netflix and two community television association groups.
Most, even including Netflix, support Bill C-10 and wish for speedy adoption (the real battles will come in front of the…
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TORONTO – CBC announced Thursday it is bringing four acclaimed drama series to CBC TV and CBC Gem this spring.
The first one will be the Canadian network premiere of the BAFTA and Emmy-nominated historical series Victoria (2017) on Monday, March 22.
This will be followed by the Canadian network premiere of new British detective series Miss Scarlet and The Duke (2020) on Monday, March 29; the exclusive Canadian premiere of BBC limited series Us (2019) starring Tom Hollander on Sunday, April 4; and the Canadian broadcast premiere of new Australian psychological thriller The Secret She Keeps (2020) starring Downton Abbey’s…
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Satellite radio company also adds new Peter Mansbridge show
TORONTO – SiriusXM Canada and GM Canada announced today a new multi-year agreement which will see the carmaker increase installation of the satellite radio hardware in new vehicles, making the SiriusXM satellite radio service available in nearly all Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles, beginning with model year 2021.
“GM was one of the first automakers in the country to begin factory-installing SiriusXM on select models, and over the course of 15 years, GM has produced over 3 million SiriusXM equipped vehicles,” said Paul Cunningham, senior vice president, sales and marketing, SiriusXM…
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Company founder Tim Gamble stepping down from the board
VANCOUVER — Thunderbird Entertainment Group reported Wednesday evening its revenue increased by a whopping 98% year-over-year to reach $28 million in the second quarter ended December 31, 2020, compared to the same quarter in the previous year.
For the first half of its 2021 fiscal year, Thunderbird’s revenue was $47.7 million, which represents a 56% increase over the first six months of its 2020 fiscal year, the company said.
The company reported adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 million and $10 million for the three and six months ended December 31, 2020, which represent year-over-year…
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